SHEBOYGAN — After severe storms barreled through southeast Wisconsin, one of the hardest-hit communities faces a hefty clean-up ahead.
Neighbors across Sheboygan, who are facing the clean-up, say they are happy to be on the other side of the storms.
The damage goes on for miles as crews work to cut down the broken limbs and clear out areas of Sheboygan covered in debris. For residents like Gail Wilke, a typical night at home became anything but when the weather took a quick turn for the worse.
“All of a sudden we heard this just giant ‘whoosh’ and everything became very black. And we heard massive sounds outside so we grabbed the dogs and went to the basement,” said Wilke.
For thousands of people all across Sheboygan, a lot of their days started with uprooted trees in their yards, blocking streets, and even covering homes.
"It was sort of pouring out. I come down my street and I said to my wife, I said ‘Oh my gosh, the tree is down!’ I pulled in the driveway, I thought it was their house and my wife says, ‘No, that’s our house,'" said Donald Grimm who had a tree fall on his home.
Neighbors across the city tell us that clean-up could take hours or even days. But, they say the community of Sheboygan is strong and they’ll take as long as they need to to get it back to where it belongs.
Thousands of customers remained without power in Sheboygan following Wednesday's storms.
Alliant Energies says as of about 4 p.m. Thursday, more than 3,000 customers were still in the dark. Power should be back by 8 p.m. Friday.
Utility crews were out working to restore power all day Thursday.
Customers like Dino Castillo were running on generators. He rushed out to buy one Thursday morning, as well as a chainsaw to help clean up.
"We have a sump pump hooked up to a generator, as well as our refrigerator," Castillo said.
