GREEN BAY (NBC 26) — Power utility crews from Wisconsin are helping Californians turn the lights back on.
Nearly 50 people from Wisconsin Public Service and its sister company We Energies are in California working to get the lights back on for tens of thousands of people who lost power from a series of strong storms.
According to a statement from WPS, the crews are part of a mutual aid effort to help Pacific Gas and Electric address outages from storms, flooding and mudslides. The crews loaded their trucks and left Wisconsin on Saturday. After traveling across the country, they are in now California and beginning restoration efforts in the central part of the state.
According to the Associated Press, more than 10,000 people who were ordered out of seaside towns on the central coast were allowed to return home Tuesday.
Yet thousands of people living near rain-swollen creeks and rivers remain under evacuation orders, including some 4,000 residents of Planada in the San Joaquin Valley, where neighborhoods were under water.
Gov. Gavin Newsom says at least 17 people have died in storms since late December.
This article contains content from the Associated Press
