In hard-hit Plover, 4,000 remain without power

Editor’s Note: At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, WPS reported about 2,000 residents were still without power.

By Brandi Makuski

About one-quarter of residents in Plover are still without power Tuesday night, but village and town officials say line crews are working around the clock to get electric grids back up and running.

Plover was hit particularly hard by a major storm event on Saturday, which included 87-mile-an-hour straight winds and dumped just under three inches of water across the area in under 30 minutes the morning of July 20. Police Chief Dan Ault said he’s not aware of any injuries or deaths as a result of the storm.

Ault said he and his officers observed widespread damage around their own homes and neighborhoods, but what stuck out most was the obvious and public generosity of residents helping one another—and local businesses offering to help.

“I’ve seen so many people in the village helping each other,” Ault said. “A lot of courteous drivers taking their time and being respectful at intersections, a lot of people have opened their homes, their freezers, their showers…it’s really touching, really encouraging to see that.”

Plover Deputy Fire Chief Ken Voss said he believes most people were aware of the storm warning Saturday morning, but it hit with such force so quickly, he expected far more damage.

“There is a lot of damage, but it could have been a lot worse,” Voss said Tuesday. “It wasn’t as bad as the 2017 storm, but honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many trees down before.”

Voss said a large portion of the village, and adjacent Town of Plover, are still without power, including his own home, and many were using generators to keep some lights on. On Wednesday, Voss said the department’s weekly training night will include helping clear yards of debris.

Village Administrator Dan Mahoney said shortly after the storm passed on Saturday, he knew the village would have a tough time getting information to the public.

“A storm this severe isn’t a very common occurrence, but when you’ve got no power, no internet, your cell phones aren’t working, you sit there and wonder, ‘How are we going to get information out?'” Mahoney said on Tuesday. “It’s definitely something we’re still scratching our heads over, getting information out quickly should those circumstances every arise again.”

Mahoney said village officials took to Facebook to get their messages out, and local businesses have been a big help by placing updates from Wisconsin Public Service, or information about brush pickup, on their roadside marquee signs.

Emergency crews in the village have responded to two incidents relating to restored power, Mahoney said, including one circumstance where a resident, who was cooking when the power went out, forgot to turn off a stovetop. When the power was restored two days later, a small fire broke out. There were no injuries, he said.

He urged residents without power in the village to make sure their appliances were turned off.

“It’s those little things people don’t think about; walk around your house, turn everything off, so when the power comes back on, you don’t have a problem,” he said.

Town of Plover Chairman Tim Karcheski said even though the town’s budget and staff are considerably smaller than the village, he’s had every available resource clearing roads.

“The day of the storm we had every tractor and payloader out there we could,” Karcheski said by phone on Tuesday. “Even some of the farmers came out to help. We have some roads still plugged, and there are so many power lines down [that] until the power company gets in there, there’s not much we can do.”

As of 7:30 p.m. on July 23, WPS is reporting 4,316 residents in Plover—about 23,000 across the Central Wisconsin region—were still without electricity. The company estimates most customers should have their power restored by Thursday.