Now that winter is behind us, thousands of residents are in danger of having their power shut off.

The winter moratorium, the period when gas and electric utilities cannot be shut off, comes to an end April 15th.

WPSC wants its customers who have falled behind on paying their utilities to take action now.

"The number one thing is they wanna make sure they contact their utilities and set up arrangements, the number two thing is making sure they keep the arrangements," says Kelly Zagrzebski, with Wisconsin Public Service Corporation.

She says though gas and electric bills on average have decreased by about 25% this year, the same amount of people have avoided paying their bills.

Out of 500,000 customers in the northeastern region of Wisconsin, 5 percent, that's 25,000 customers, are in danger of being left in the dark.

"We actually just finally paid it from winter because it had gotten so high we couldn't pay it with Christmas and everything," says customer, Lawrence Cahak Jr.

And he's not alone.

Zagrzebski says, "There's a lot of different reasons, the economy is one, they've lost their job, didn't think about paying their utilities, knew their power couldn't be cut off until the 15th of April."

But help is available.

By calling WPSC, customers can apply for energy assistance programs, get in touch with local charities and set up more affordable payment plans.

Last year, 20,000 customers in this region lost power after failing to pay their bills.