WISCONSIN — More than 6,000 are still without power as of Friday morning after a severe storm made its way through Wisconsin on Tuesday.
A bulk of the outages that occurred were concentrated in the Madison area. More than 2,000 Madison Gas and Electric (MGE) customers are still without power as of 11 a.m. Friday.
Officials with the electric company said it has been one of the largest outages in MGE history, with 250 separate outages reported that affected more than 42,000 people. The company said damage from the storm included several broken poles, downed trees, branches and wires.
Jason Phipps, who lives on the west side of Madison, said the storm left him and his family with no power for 17 hours after a tree fell on his home. He said crews worked to restore his power.
“The guys that were working on this did a really good job of keeping us informed, they were around and telling us what they were doing so they did a good job. It was annoying, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said.
MGE said it's been able to restore 93% of customers' power. The company said it expects to restore power to those still waiting by the end of day Saturday.
John Hanson was one Madison resident still without power on Thursday.
“The power poles are all down to the east and to the west. We have some big trees that came down," he said.
Hanson said while it's an inconvenience, he knows crews are working hard to get his power restored.
Steve Schultz, the company’s corporate communications manager, said MGE has reached out to other power companies around the state about possible mutual assistance.
MGE isn’t the only electric company impacted by the storm.
Several hundred Wisconsin Public Service customers were also still without power Thursday. Another couple hundred from Alliant Energy were still without power, too.
Officials reminded people to stay away from downed power lines and assume that line is energized and dangerous. MGE said customers can report a downed line by calling (608) 252-7111 or 1-800-245-1123.
Get a full look at outages, here.