APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) - Wednesday's spring ice storm did a lot of damage across the Fox Valley, causing emergency crews and residents to try and get back to normal on Thursday.
Paul Davis is one of many Appleton residents who braved the wind and rain to clean up his yard.
"I got six pine trees and there is two and a half left, yeah she's bad,” Davis told FOX 11.
Evidence of the storm can still be found all over the city. Streets around town have been blocked with debris.
Meanwhile, We Energies crews continued restoring power throughout the day. At one point a day earlier, more than 40,000 customers were without power throughout the Fox Valley.
"We got a break because we didn't get that second wave of freezing rain last night. That allowed the crews to work overnight and make some good progress,” Brian Manthey with We Energies told FOX 11.
While many remained stunned at just how bad the storm really was.
"I left yesterday morning and I didn't realize it was that bad until I got over by College Avenue over there and I saw this tree on top of a car and all of that,” said Dick Neubert, Appleton.
A storm officials say could take months to clean up completely.
While Emergency Management officials are still coordinating cleanup efforts around the city, they're also looking ahead to what Thursday night and Friday might bring.
"You have to have a really good crystal ball is the analogy I like to look at. What is right in front of you, what has happened that you are still dealing with but you also have to be able to look into the future,” said Outagamie County Emergency Management Director Julie Loeffelholz.
With the chance for more severe weather in the forecast, it's not a future many are looking forward to.
"If it is just snow and light winds, we shouldn't have any of that kind of intensity of damage and outages, but if we have that same repeat then we will be back out here again,” said Manthey.
"We're prepared; we are ready to pull people back and continue with some of the operations that we have already set in place,” said Loeffelholz.
Just in Outagamie County, the emergency communications center had received more than 1,400 calls by mid-morning Wednesday. And Appleton firefighters responded to nearly 300 calls and fought two storm related fires.