GREEN BAY, Wis. (NBC 26) — As crews work to restore power to customers following Wednesday's destructive storms, a man in Green Bay still didn't have power when we talked with him earlier on Friday.
But his situation was nearly much worse.
"It's crazy how everything happened," Green Bay resident Rogelio Contreras said.
Severe weather forced Contreras to rush home Wednesday night.
Mother Nature ended up being kind to him, but not to everything.
"As I was pulling in, and turned off the car, I just felt a little tap on my head," Contreras said.
A tree fell right on top of Contreras' Volkswagen.
"And as I turned around, the whole back of the car was destroyed."
Contreras got out unharmed.
But to add insult to injury, the storm knocked out his power and is coping with it by cleaning up the damage and spending more time outside with his family.
"Overall, it's just visiting relatives," Contreras said. "We go there, charge our phones just to be necessary. Or we drive around just to be charging our phones."
Contreras was one of thousands of people still without power in the Green Bay area as of Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, Wisconsin Public Service crews are working hard to restore power to its customers.
"Our crews really have made good progress," WPS spokesman Matt Cullen said.
Cullen says workers have restored power to about 150,000 customers.
But he says it may take until Sunday until all customers get their power back.
"In the Fox Valley area, that's where we've seen some of the most extensive damage," Cullen said.
In areas with lots of damage, crews need to check all the boxes to make sure they can turn the power back on safely.
"There are trees that are down," Cullen said. "There might be service lines that are down. There might be other impacts to our system. And we've got to go and address each one of those specific scenarios in order to be able to fully restore power.
And as Contreras waits for his power to come back, his cleanup efforts from Mother Nature's mess continue.
"Just staying calm," Contreras said. "And I guess, looking for the positive."
