August 4, 2023 – Washington County, WI – While most of us were interrupted for merely a few hours by a power outage, our staff will be cleaning up from the storms for the next few weeks. Tree limbs caused a large number of electrical outages that night which had most people out of power both in Hartford and Slinger until 3:10 a.m. on Saturday.
Most of those outages were caused not by limbs located around the lines but actually, those draped across the street and within striking distance from lines.
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Public Works crews were called out immediately with many out clearing streets and removing limbs from utilities.
Electric crews were dispatched immediately attempting to identify the lines down and getting them all back up. An electrical crew from Cedarburg was also brought in on
mutual aid to assist in getting power restored quickly.
Parks saw a lot of damage with trees and limbs falling in cemeteries and parks. Park and Forestry staff will be cleaning these up over the next two weeks. Luckily, no headstones were damaged from falling trees in this storm.
While many of the street lights went out between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 3 a.m., our street lights were still functioning with backup power. This was big as we work to make sure our backup power is working.
Brush pick-up, which is normally done the first full week of each month, will easily take three consecutive weeks to get it all picked up. If your brush has not been picked up yet,
please be patient as our crews conduct this service in an orderly fashion.
Some people experienced property damage including a few cars damaged by falling limbs.
Our thanks go out to the Police, Fire, Dispatch, Electric, Public Works, Parks, and others who either came in that night to help with the recovery of service or helped clean it up the following day. We are very proud of how our staff responded to make sure this event did not result in extended outages or major safety issues.
This storm is a reminder to call the Electric Utility when your power is out: This past weekend also served as a good reminder that when your power is interrupted, don’t dial 911. Please dial the Hartford Electric general number at 262-670-3700. This number goes to a 24/7 live answering system which will contact the correct respondent and get crews out to you quickly.
Why is it going to take 3 weeks??? Can’t do the woodchipper a couple extra days???
Some of us were out of electricity for over 10 hours in Hartford.