Tens of thousands lose power after overnight storms rock southeast Wisconsin
Updated: 4:55 p.m. on April 14, 2026
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The storm's timing could not have been worse for Tammy Bush, who owns a Liberty Tax location in the building where a billboard got blown down from the roof.
Bush said she was inside the business when the worst of the storm hit around 2 a.m.
She was inside filing returns as one day remained before the April 15 federal tax deadline.
"I'm sitting there looking out my windows," Bush said. "And I could just see the wind and it looks like a big a** tornado coming through."
Bush said she then heard a very loud boom. She then went outside, and what she saw was scary.
"It was actually, kind of like, going into sparks and stuff because of how it hit the light pole up there," she recalled.
Crews from the Lamar advertising company spent most of the day clearing debris off W. Euclid Ave. and breaking down parts of the massive billboard.
However, the heaviest lifting will happen another day, as crew cleared the site by late Tuesday afternoon.
About 2.5 miles northeast of the billboard collapse, Milwaukee Public Works crews cut up a large tree that fell across S. 20th. St. near W. Greenfield Ave.
The tree had fallen across two cars and a pickup truck. The very top of the tree landed just inches short of Duke Mane's house.
Mane said he was sleeping and heard a loud crashing sound. He assumed it was his upper level patio furniture getting tossed around.
His son, who lives on the first floor the house, let him know that wasn't the case.
"My son called, and I go, 'Yeah, the table blew over,'" Mane said. "He goes, 'No, dad. A lot more than the table blew over. The whole tree came down. It's sitting in front of the house; I can't get out the front door.'"
Mane said when the sun came up and he got a better sense of how close the tree came from hitting the house, he felt a huge sense of relief.
"That could've went right through the windows, and my bed is right there," Mane said, pointing to a front-facing window. "Just imagine, anything could've happened."
While the timing couldn't have been worse for Bush and her business, it was a savior for Joseph Eberle.
He said he'd moved his car up a few lengths Monday night.
He didn't do it because of the storm. Instead, he wanted to have more room for when a relative came Tuesday to work on his car's brakes.
"Lucky I moved my car because where my car was sitting, that's where the tree fell," Eberle said.
Tiffany Shepherd, a spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Department of Public Works (DPW) said the city fielded about 130 calls Tuesday for tree-related damage.
The DPW's forestry division was able to handle those calls, and Shepherd said while crews were busy across the city, the DPW did not need to pull workers from other regular services, such as street repairs and trash/recycling pickup.
Published: 6:14 a.m. on April 14, 2026
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- We Energies reported around 31,000 customers without power Tuesday morning as of 8:42 a.m. after storms swept through the area overnight, including more than 20,000 each in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.
Click here for the latest updated figures, direct from We Energies.
Video from Jefferson County shows a roof that appears to be at least partially torn from a home due to severe winds.
In West Allis, tornado sirens blared as the storm moved through overnight, waking many residents, though the storms themselves may have accomplished that, too.
We spoke to a man early Tuesday who says his car was damaged after he drove into a fallen tree. He said, "While I was driving, it was raining -- downpouring. It was dark outside. Couldn't really see nothing. Came up on the tree, last minute."