Heavy rain over the past couple days is causing a steam system outage on I-794. We Energies says that means 400 customers are without heat or hot water Tuesday.
We Energies says they have no estimate as to when this situation will be taken care of.
The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department to shut down east and westbound lanes from the Marquette interchange to the Lincoln Memorial Drive ramps.
Plumes of steam have gotten smaller, but We Energies says that’s just an indication of the temperature getting cooler, as it can get as hot as 400 degrees in the underground steam tunnels. Unfortunately, We Energies says that does not mean this problem is going away until thousands upon thousands of gallons are pumped out, which crews are currently addressing.
“We have a hard time getting rid of it and so, something happened in one of our steam tunnels, we think in this general vicinity, but until we can get down and see what it was, or I should say steam pipes, until we can get down and see it, we don’t know what it is," said Brendan Conway with We Energies.
This steam outage is impacting 400 customers, but We Energies says that’s far more than 400 people without heat or hot water. Each customer represents an individual building, which could be a number of apartments and businesses. We Energies says they hope to have another update on this situation by Tuesday afternoon.
