Milwaukee residents experienced a blustery start to today, as strong winds caused widespread power outages across the city. Early reports from We Energies indicated that the initial surge in outages began around 5:30 a.m., affecting approximately 2,500 customers, and by the time crews had restored service to some, nearly 1,300 were still waiting for power to return after 9 a.m., WISN reported.

According to Brendan Conway of We Energies, in a statement obtained by WISN, "Our crews responded. They believe that the high winds impacted our equipment. That knocked down one of our lines." He added, "This one took a little bit longer than normal just because we had to restring the wire. That's very unusual, but we did get on it as quickly as we could." The affected areas included Locust Street on the north, Prospect Avenue on the east, and parts of the Lower East Side near Brady Street. The utility company advised that reporting outages via their website or app was the most efficient way for crews to respond.

The We Energies outage map displayed more than 1,000 affected customers this morning, with the count at 1,518 customers as of 6:45 a.m. without service, as FOX6 News highlighted. The Milwaukee Fire Department was also called out to the intersection of Prospect and Brady for a report of wires down, where they secured the scene before alerting We Energies to the hazard.

An overhead line issue has been identified as the cause of the outages. The problem was first noted on the We Energies online outage map around 7 a.m., with an initial power restoration estimate of 9 a.m. However, no definitive timetable was provided. A We Energies spokesperson confirmed that high winds have been causing scattered outages in the area, and crews are actively assessing and working to restore power safely, as reported by CBS 58.