DE PERE (NBC 26) — With power still out in some areas of Northeast Wisconsin, WPS crews are still hard at work. Here’s the latest on the outages in our area.
- WPS crews have been working on restoring electricity all day Friday.
- Matt Cullen of WPS said that hundreds of workers from around the Midwest are helping in our area.
- Helen Panetti has been without power since Tuesday but is making the most of it with her husband, Jim.
Helen Panetti and her husband, Jim, have had a flooded basement and no power since Tuesday.
"We just kind of went to bed at night and knew we'd wake up to the puddle in the morning,” Helen said.
She says that a lot of the neighborhood is without power and they banded together. Helen and Jim even got their generator from their son.
"I felt very grateful because we live in an area where people help each other,” said Helen.
More help was on the way, in the form of Wisconsin Public Service. Matt Cullen of WPS says they have helped more than 100,000 customers restore power.
"We have an army of public service crews as well as hundreds of workers from across the Midwest,” Cullen said.
Tuesday's storm brought a number of outages that some say they've never seen before. Cullen says this was due to the type of storm that we saw.
"This storm was a little unique in that it really sat on top of our area for a number of hours,” Cullen says.
A tough week for Helen but she has decided to stay positive.
"It was kind of fun. I don't know if Jim would say the same thing since he did most of the work, but I was kind of there to help him,” Helen laughed. “I know where all of the flashlights are now."
WPS says whatever power is not back by Friday night should be restored by Saturday.
