City Forestry and MG&E Storm Damage Updates

Urban Forestry Response

Depending on the severity of the two rounds of thunderstorms hitting Madison today, and their impact on storm response, Urban Forestry crews expect to have all road blockages cleared by 12:00pm today, May 24, 2024.

As of the publication of this release, and as more calls continue to come in, we have tallied 889 unique reports for tree damage related to the May 21 storm, and 287 of these calls would be considered emergency level needs, such as a tree blocking a road, fully blocking a driveway, or falling into a home.

At this time, 62 emergency calls are still unresolved, and crews are continuing to prioritize them in their response before moving onto other needs.

Urban Forestry crews will be working again through the evening tonight. They will be continuing the work on Saturday with the goal that all emergency-level needs will be resolved on May 25, leaving just lower priority concerns to address.

The two rounds of storms today (May 24), unfortunately, may complicate or slow the response, depending on their severity, however, Urban Forestry arborists will be doing their best to continue to the response to help clean up from the devastating storm of May 21 that hit our city.

As a reminder, please use the Tree Concern report-a-problem form to report storm damage to public trees if you have not done so.  The report-a-problem website is www.cityofmadison.com/ReportaProblem.

Brush Collection

As a reminder, residents can learn when to set out brush for pickup at www.cityofmadison.com/BrushCollection.

The dates shown on the website are the dates when residents should set out brush for pickup.  The actual collection will occur sometime during the work week following the set-out date listed. 

MG&E Outage Response Update

MG&E is now publishing Estimated Times of Restoration (ETR) for remaining outages from Tuesday's storm. ETRs are estimates and they can change as circumstances change. Each outage incident is unique in its complexity and presents different challenges for our crews. If you haven’t yet reported an outage, please call 1-800-245-1123.

MG&E expects the remaining customers without power after Tuesday's storm will have service restored by the end of the day Saturday, with the majority of those customers restored prior to that.

MG&E stated: "We understand the inconvenience of experiencing a service interruption, and we appreciate our customers’ continued patience throughout this unprecedented event. Our around the clock restoration effort continues as MG&E crews and a large contingency of mutual assistance crews work to restore service to the remaining customers impacted by Tuesday evening’s damaging storms with hurricane-force winds."

Potential for more storms today

The weather forecast for today may pose some challenges with showers and thunderstorms possible through much of the day and evening. MG&E encourage customers to be prepared and follow these severe weather preparedness tips. Crews are prepared to continue their current restoration efforts through any storms today.

Damage to customer owned equipment – help prepare for re-energization

It is possible customers may have suffered storm damage to the electrical equipment they own. While MG&E owns the pole, the wiring to the meter and the meter, customers own the remaining equipment (see graphic below). If this equipment is damaged, the customer must have a licensed electrician make repairs before MG&E can restore power.

MG&E urges customers to be sure to visually inspect the area outside your home near the meter. If you see damage to the weatherhead, meter box, or other customer-owned equipment, call an electrician for advice. This can be done at any time.