- Video shows WPS explaining what the first step should be when losing power and a local hardware store explaining increased interest in one item leading up to the cold.
- People have been preparing for the cold, an emphasis for WPS when advising the public how to handle a potential power outage.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story)
With Friday's temperatures in the negatives all day, any time without power can prove detrimental to those affected. Matt Cullen with Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) says outages weren't an issue on Friday, but the weather is keeping them on standby.
"As far as I'm aware there really haven't been any significant or any substantial issues that have popped up on our system," said Cullen.
"But we understand that these cold temperatures are going to be hanging around still for a few more days so we're continuing to keep a close eye on that."
If you do lose power, Cullen says notifying WPS is the best way for them to pinpoint who is affected and what they need to fix.
"The biggest thing that customers can do is make sure that they have that outage reported to us. Don't assume always that we know about your outage," said Cullen.
"Let us know about it and it really does help us be able to better pinpoint the specific customers who have been impacted by a situation."
People have been preparing for the cold for several days now.
Katy Martin is the owner of Martin Hardware and says over the past week she's seen more customers coming in looking for, among other things, one specific item that could help if the power goes out.
"They're just cold, they want another heater," said Martin
The heater isn't just for the customers themselves, it's also for their homes.
"In the cold there's always people coming in, getting extra heaters, putting them in rooms that might be basements that have pipes of exterior rooms that have pipes on them to help them from getting too cold," said Martin.
While WPS doesn't expect to be responding to a large number of power outages in the coming days, they say everyone should have a plan in case they lose power.
