Aug. 28 (UPI) – Thousands of residents in Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and some parts of Wisconsin were still without power Wednesday after severe storms hit the region earlier this week.
Officials said power may not be restored to some customers until Thursday.
As of Wednesday morning, an estimated 30,000 Xcel Energy customers in parts of western Wisconsin and the greater Minnesota Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and the state capital of St. Paul still had no power.
More than 250,000 Xcel Energy customers in two states were affected by two waves of severe weather, officials said, adding that some customers may not have full power restored until Thursday evening.
Fallen trees and power lines hampered cleanup efforts in the area during the day on Wednesday after severe thunderstorms devastated residential areas in the region on Monday and Tuesday.
The weather appeared calm and clear on Wednesday as the clouds cleared, but meteorologists say another storm could hit the more than 3 million residents of the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area around 5 p.m. local time on Thursday.
Earlier in the week, a mix of severe storms hit much of the Twin Cities metropolitan area Monday night, with winds over 70 miles per hour triggering severe thunderstorm warnings.
The Minnesota State Fair, which began Aug. 22 and runs through Sept. 2 in St. Paul, experienced delays in admission Tuesday as emergency crews assessed storm damage and cleared debris.
As the storms passed through, fairgoers were urged to seek shelter as some rides, attractions and fairground stalls were temporarily closed. However, by Wednesday, most of the fairground operations had resumed.
Since the storms passed through, thousands of power outages have been reported in the metropolitan area, including 2,316 in Edina, 3,410 in Minneapolis, just over 1,000 in Minnetonka, 1,945 in Richfield and more than 1,500 in the St. Louis Park neighborhoods.
Connexus Energy, which serves Isanti County in Minnesota, reported more than 1,300 customers without power at one point.
According to Xcel officials, more than 1,700 people have been deployed in work crews since the beginning of this week to restore power.
According to Xcel Energy, repair crews typically start in the largest known power outage areas before moving down to the local neighborhood level.
On Tuesday, Xcel initially said it was working to restore power and assess storm damage for about 150,000 customers in the two Midwestern states. By Wednesday, that number had dropped to about 30,000.
The massive power outage came on the heels of the Biden administration’s “unprecedented” initiative to bring together 21 states to modernize the country’s aging power grid, reduce blackouts, and improve power transmission capacity.
A United Press International editor stationed in the Minnesota capital area experienced a power outage and had to relocate to work.
“I don’t drive, but I was able to drive to my parents’ house on Tuesday night and work from home on Wednesday,” said UPI editor Annie Martin of Minneapolis.
Martin also said she was told it may take until Thursday for power to be restored for some Xcel customers.
“The power outage is really inconvenient,” Martin said. “I just feel sorry for the people who have nowhere else to go. Three days without power is too long.”
