Aug. 28 (UPI) — Thousands of residents in Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro area and some parts of Wisconsin still were without electricity Wednesday after severe storms hit the region earlier this week.
Power may not be restored for some customers until Thursday, officials say.
By Wednesday morning, an estimated 30,000 Xcel Energy customers still had no power in parts of western Wisconsin and the broad metro area of Minnesota’s Twin Cities of Minneapolis and the state’s capital, St. Paul.
More than 250,000 of Xcel Energy’s customers across two states were affected by two rounds of severe storms, officials said, adding that some customers may not be fully restored to the grid until Thursday evening.
Downed trees and power lines plagued cleanup efforts in the area during the day on Wednesday after severe thunderstorms ravaged neighborhoods in the region Monday and Tuesday.
Wednesday’s weather appeared quiet and clear as clouds cleared. But forecasters say another storm on Thursday could affect the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area’s more than 3 million residents at about 5 p.m. local time.
Earlier in the week, a mix of strong storms Monday night developed for much of the Twin Cities metro area as winds reaching more than 70 mph triggered severe thunderstorm warnings.
Minnesota’s State Fair, which began Aug. 22 and runs through Sept. 2 in St. Paul, saw delayed admission Tuesday as crews assessed storm damage and cleared up debris.
When storms moved through, fair attendees were urged to find shelter as some rides, attractions and fair vendors were temporarily shut down. By Wednesday, though, most fair operations were in place again.
Since the storms moved through, thousands of outages have been reported in the metro area, including 2,316 in Edina by one point, 3,410 in Minneapolis, a little over 1,000 in Minnetonka, 1,945 in Richfield and more than 1,500 in the St. Louis Park neighborhoods.
Connexus Energy, servicing Minnesota’s Isanti County, reported more than 1,300 customers without power at one point.
According to Xcel officials, more than 1,700 people on dispatched work crews have been working to restore power since earlier this week.
Xcel Energy says repair crews typically start at the largest known areas of power outages before moving into local neighborhood levels.
On Tuesday, Xcel initially stated that it was working to restore power and assess storm damage for approximately 150,000 customers across the two Midwestern states. That number was down to about 30,000 by Wednesday.
The massive power outage arrives on the heels of the Biden administration’s “unprecedented” 21-state initiative to modernize the nations’ aging power grid and design it to reduce power outages and improve the capacity of electrical transmission.
A United Press International editor based in Minnesota’s capital metro hub lost electricity and was forced to relocate in order to work.
“I don’t drive but I was able to get to my parents’ house Tuesday evening and work from home there Wednesday,” said UPI editor Annie Martin, of Minneapolis.
Martin also said that she had been advised that it may be Thursday before electricity is restored to some Xcel customers.
“The outage is really inconvenient,” said Martin. “I just feel bad for people who don’t have anywhere else to go. Three days without power is too long.”
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