Steam outage leaves hundreds in Milwaukee without heat, hot water for days

MILWAUKEE -- Hundreds of Milwaukee residents have been without hot water or heat for the last couple of days due to flooded steam tunnels.

"You don't really realize you need it until it's not there," said resident Delaney Coomans. "I'm just trying to make the best of a bad situation."

The non-stop rain the caused the flooding has made fixing the problem even harder.

The steam outages started early Monday morning and remain a task at hand for We Energies. Crews are pumping out thousands of gallons of water to trying to find and fix the issue.

"We're pumping out thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons every few minutes," said We Energies' Brendan Conway. "The big issue right now is that there is just nowhere for the water to go, so we're not able to get that out."

We Energies crews working to restore heat, hot water service in Milwaukee

We Energies pumping water out of flooded steam tunnels

We Energies is trying to get to the source of the problem that has caused outages to people living in 185 buildings.

Delaney Coomans

The outages have left people -- like Coomans -- without hot water or heat since Monday morning.

"I ended up not being able to shower last night just because the water is so cold," Coomans said. "There's really no way that you could shower with the water that we have."

Making matters worse, the ice-cold issue has come at an inconvenient time.

"It is frustrating, especially when I'm quarantined inside. It's not like I have the freedom to go to a friend's house and use their hot water," said Coomans. "Right now, I'm just kind of waiting for things to be resolved."

Brendan Conway

We Energies is asking people to be patient as crews continue to work. Customers anticipate a nice hot shower when it's all fixed.

The outage has not affected gas or electric services. It is unclear how exactly how long it will take to fix the problem.