MILWAUKEE — We Energies says 261,000 customers lost power since Friday, making the largest mass outage in the area in nearly half a century.
Many of those outages were caused by tree limbs falling on power lines.
"It only gets more expensive the longer it's out when you have to try and find other places to stay if you have to start paying for hotels,” said Kendra Kunkel.
Kunkel was one of hundreds of thousands who were left in the dark and cold over the weekend or finding another place to stay after their power went out.
"Every winter it's a challenge with us losing power,” she said.
It’s something Kunkel says has turned into an unwanted annual tradition at her house due to large tree limbs snapping power lines.
"There's a lot of trees in the area and you can tell when a tree is going down and it seems to be in the same area that you see them working out on trees after the outage has occurred,” she said.
We Energies says it takes responsibility for trimming trees within ten feet on either side of its thousands of miles of power lines at no additional cost to the homeowner.
“Has We Energies been able to keep up with the tree limbs hanging over power lines?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
"As part of our plan, we're out every year trimming trees across all of our service territory, so yes,” Spokesman Brendan Conway said.
Conway says each area gets trimmed on a 6 to 8 year cycle. He says that’s the average time it takes for branches to grow back. But Conway admits there are challenges that were seen over the weekend.
"We trim around our wires, but we trim within ten feet and there's a thirty foot branch or a forty foot tree that falls, that's going to take down equipment,” he said.
Conway says We Energies’ power lines are built to sustain branches touching lines, but they are susceptible to snap when large branches come down.
"This was really the perfect storm of bad situations,” he said. “Wind, cold, heavy wet thick snow and limbs that fell not just on day one, not even day two. We were still seeing limbs fall or our equipment being impacted day three and four."
“What would you say to customers who are frustrated they were without power for three to four days?” Jordan asked.
“We understand their frustration,” Conway replied.
Conway says after every major weather event that comes with outages, the company looks into what needs to be addressed and this storm is no different. He says something customers can do is call the company if they see tree limbs of concern and We Energies will send a crew to determine if it needs to be trimmed sooner than originally scheduled.
Kunkel thinks the schedule needs to speed up.
"Given that they're going back out and having to deal with the same trees or the same area of trees so frequently and knowing that this is every year we're losing power for hours days or up to a week has been my experience, no I think it needs to be evaluated more frequently,” she said.
If you want to find out when We Energies plans to go to your neighborhood for tree trimming, click here and then click on 'line clearance maps'.
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