Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski A tree lies near the road on Lake Drive in the town of Wescott near Mielke Park. Other trees in the area fell on power lines and caused outages throughout the county.
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Many signs such as this one at Badger’s Best Furniture on North Main Street in Shawano were knocked over Wednesday due to the high winds.
Two days of high winds kept authorities and area work crews busy cleaning up debris and addressing utility problems throughout Shawano County this week.
The National Weather Service clocked the winds at 25-35 mph with gusts sometimes blowing past the 50 mph mark.
At least two county fires were blamed on power lines downed by the winds.
“The winds are causing issues with all kinds of things,” Sheriff’s Department Capt. Tom Tuma said.
The department logged 15 reports of debris in the road or utility problems Tuesday, followed by another 17 reports between midnight and 3 p.m. Wednesday.
Issues ranged from fallen limbs and branches to entire trees blocking roadways. Fallen power lines on Tuesday started a ditch fire and set fire to two trees, according to the daily sheriff’s report.
Even heavier winds blew in on Wednesday.
“It’s worse today than yesterday,” said Eddie Sheppard, Shawano Public Works coordinator.
Crews were “out and about all day” cleaning up the debris, he said.
The winds also caused headaches for Shawano Municipal Utilities and power outages for pockets of customers.
“We have had numerous tree issues causing outages (Wednesday),” said Rob Koepp, SMU electrical supervisor.
It began just after midnight when crews were called in to put in a secondary power line and restore service to three customers in the 1200 block of South Sawyer Street. They were back online in about an hour.
Most other calls came in between 8-9 a.m., beginning with a large pine tree across from the Goodwill store on Lakeland Road that fell on a three-phase primary overhead power line and snapped a pole.
Five properties lost power, according to SMU, with power restored to four of them by noon. Crews were still working on the last late Wednesday afternoon.
A fallen tree also knocked out power for about a half hour to 28 houses between Cleveland and Kadletz streets.
Nine customers were affected when a tree came down on a single-phase overhead primary line in the 600 block of South Hamlin Street. That outage also lasted about 30 minutes.
A fallen tree also caused an outage for about 15 customers on Woods Road just north of the city. That outage lasted about an hour and a half.
“We also had four other locations where trees or large branches had come down and ripped the service masts off the customer’s houses,” Koepp said. “In those cases we disconnected the wires and had the home owners call an electrician to put the masts back on the house so that we could rehang and reconnect the service wire.”
Shawano police logged 15 wind-related reports of damage over the last two days, as of about 4 p.m. Wednesday.
In addition to debris in roadways and utility problems, the winds brought down a street light and two road signs, pushed garbage cans and even a dumpster into the street, and caused a car door to fly open and take off the mirror of another vehicle.