Power outages continue into the weekend for some Wisconsin Public Service customers

Wisconsin Public Service customers living in areas hardest hit by this week's storms may continue to face power outages into the weekend.

Alison Trouy, a spokesperson for WEC Energy Group, the company that owns WPS and We Energies, said areas that saw extensive damage and may take longer to have power restored include Stevens Point, Wausau, Sturgeon Bay, Rhinelander and Minocqua.

According to a statement from WEC Energy Group, WPS has restored power to more than 105,000 customers and expects to bring power back to 90% of customers facing outages by Friday night, but Trouy said some customers in hard-hit areas may have to wait as late as Sunday for power to return.

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As of Friday afternoon, Trouy said about 13,000 WPS customers remained without power.

The majority of outages are caused by tree limbs and entire trees falling onto equipment during strong winds, she said.

"If a tree limb crashes down onto our powerlines, that can knock them to the ground, or sometimes if it's a big enough tree, that can actually break our power poles," Trouy said. "That's kind of most of the damage that we've been seeing."

We Energies, which provides electricity to 1.1 million customers in Wisconsin, has restored power to around 145,000 customers this week, with close to 10,000 customers still facing outages as of Friday afternoon, Trouy said. Nearly all of We Energies customers should have their power restored by Friday night, with all remaining outages assigned or restored by Saturday.

Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Wisconsin Public Service power outages to run into weekend for some