CUDAHY, Wis. — WE Energies said 45,000 customers lost power on Monday night after a severe storm with high winds, hail and lightening rolled through southeast Wisconsin.
One of those customers is Cudahy resident Patricia Nylen. She was on the road when the storm hit.
"I had to run into a store and the power was going out in the store," she recalled. "It was blacker than night. It was terrible, and the lightening bolts, it looked like it was hitting right in the parking lot."
When she returned home, the power in her neighborhood near Packard and College had gone out.
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She and her husband immediately started helping out their neighbors, bringing their generator from house to house to help empty sump pumps.
"Right now, that's what we're doing. Eventually, I'll need to charge my phone so I'll get the generator back, but right now we're doing this just so people's basements don't flood," Nylen said.
WE Energies is working to restore power and said the goal is to have 90% of customers restored by noon on Tuesday and the remainder of customers restored or their outage assigned by 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
Time is of the essence when it comes to getting customers back on the grid, especially as a sweltering heat wave is expected to hit on Tuesday.
Nylen said if her power isn't back on tomorrow, her plan is to move to cooler ground.
"I don't know where that is yet. I'm hoping it will come back on," she said.
If you're without air conditioning and looking for a place to cool off tomorrow, there are several places in the Milwaukee area where you can head. Click here for more information.
