These are all things we need to take in stride this summer. However, there are some things you would never think to watch for. Our old trees. The locust in front of Mary's old place on 40th did it again. For the third year in a row, that tree has lost a limb claiming the electrical utilities of yet another household. Many of you may have notice that at about midnight on Sunday evening, a fire truck pulled up in front of the 528 N. 40th. This was because that darn old tree managed to drop another power cable in the street, as well as pull the electrical conduit and meter off of 534 N. 40th.
This caused us many more problems. For example, it strangely enough did not disrupt service. WE Energies did that at 2:00 a.m. because of a policy they have NOT TO FIX what is electrical, attached to your home and broken. (What the heck do we pay them for then?)We pay them to cut live wires supplying power to your home, so you have to call a private contractor and pay $1700 to replace the broken meter and conduit and so you loose a nights sleep because of the heat and humidity. (We were out a total of 14.5 hours.) Anyway, what I am trying to say here is the due to the lack of rain and the high heat, these old trees' limbs become brittle and easily break. Between the storms on Thursday and Saturday, the branch broke enough to be a problem, but due to the winds on Sunday night, however mild, it choose to fall almost 24 hours later. At midnight. If you have older trees in your yards, check them for damage before it cost's you $1700.00 or more in repairs. Just simply inspect the branches for cracks. If possible, get them repaired. By the way, we may have still another headache. The insurance coverage. They may only process the claim if the limb actually hits your home. Not just the wires, thus causing damage to the electrial service on your home. So we may still be out the $1700 and not just the deductable. So check out those trees and your insurance coverage and try not to go postal with WE. It took WE Energies three/four phone calls and arguing, several different stories including one where they would NOT come out until after the panel was inspected to rehook it up to the power grid, and three hours after the repairs were made by the electrician to get our power back.
They have no clue what they are doing even if it is typed on a screen for them. I know. I had one lady read me what was there. That report contradicated itself 5 different times with 5 different times, 5 different names and it even had two different causes for the power being out. One, the brach immediately knocked out the power/Not true. the second, that the WE energies rep on the scene cut the lines/True. So, dealing with them is enough for me to look at every tree around our place from now on. You don't want to have to do that at all.

By JW

Trees

Oh my gosh, what a pain. Sometimes when my husband and I walk our dogs along 40th, we can hear the wires rubbing against the trees and/or the creaks of the branches when there is a good wind. But never thought anything like that would or could happen.

Does the city still trim the trees along the streets? Or is this one of the services that have been illuminated by budget cuts?


By 41st Street Resident

Trees

Yes, the city still does the the tree work, but the tree must be on city property. I called this spring and they were there trimming the branches growing into my house in about a week. All you need to do is call the forestry number located on the city of Milwaukee site, which a link is found on the main page of this site.

As for the other guy WE will also trim the trees or cut the tree to a point below the power lines. The part that sucks your responsible for getting rid of the mess and cutting the remainder of the tree down. One good thing is the city does provide special pick-up for the mess the power company leaves behind... one of the many services that they still provide.

By City Worker

More about trees

This tree is on city property. But no one could have foretold of this one. (Unless we had been looking purposely that is, and that is what I am recomending to others to do.) If you check out the tree, (it is the one right in front of the last house on the west side of 40th going north), you can see that it was a fairly large branch on the street side which fell.
If we had been looking, we probably would have noticed the break before it fell and may have been able to then call the city to do something. But as that was not the case, cest la vie!
City Worker is right, the city does do a very good job of keeping the trees trimmed but even they would not have taken off a good sized branch with no damage. Between Thursday's and Saturday's storms is when it cracked. the crack was very fresh but the wood was also very dry. So this is just a ''heads up'', pun intended, to evey one near older trees. Never be afraid to call the city if you do happen to notice a crack in a branch that may cause a snap in the lines below. It ain't fun being without air conditioning for 14 hours on the hottest night of the year. My only gripe was with WE Energies. It took them 3 hours to put the line back after telling us that it would be only 20 minutes. this happened becasue of miss communications in their own company. No one seemed to know what to do. So...
However, we are again very comfy and not so aggrevated any longer. Now we just have to wait to see if the insurance company will cover the cost minus the deductable. Definately always look at the trees around your home after a storm. The problems may not appear until well after the fact. And if a quick inspection can save you the aggrevation and worry we endured, DO IT!

By JW