Mayor's Office

Posted on Friday, Jul. 19, 2019 at 8:21 pm

As this long day winds down, I have time to debrief, and I want to thank the many City staff and others who worked on today’s fire and resulting power outage. Madison Fire responded to calls for two very dangerous fires. They has to wait for MG&E to power down the facility before using water and foam to attack the fire in a very short amount of time. They were assisted by Madison Police and Traffic Engineering to make sure the fire areas were cordoned off and people were safe. There were no injuries as a result of either fire and for that I am thankful.

The resulting power outages brought a new set of issues on which City staff, working with Dane County, MG&E, ATC, the Department of Natural Resources, Governor Evers and many other partners collaborated. The fact that the incident and power outage occurred on the warmest day of the year only made the process more difficult, but that is why we plan for emergencies.

Dane County officials worked to make sure that homeless and other vulnerable individuals were safe. MG&E staff worked to get power back on and keep residents informed. City police and Traffic Engineering worked to make sure traffic was able to proceed as smoothly as possible through the downtown area. Madison Metro kept buses running on time. We were able to set up a cooling site for the day and overnight, and the Red Cross was able to staff it. The Central Library was open throughout the day and hosted over 60 individuals from The Beacon Shelter. A local business was able to provide sandwiches and volunteers helped serve those and water. Madison Water Utility’s Water Wagon was on State Street distributing cold water to anyone who needed it. A local grocery store was distributing water on East Washington Avenue and another provided water to the overnight shelter.

I am sure there are many more stories of kindness and concern as we worked together to help each other. Another day where Madisonians stepped up. Thank you!