Utility crews continued chainsawing their way through downed trees and branches Thursday to restore power to several thousand homes and businesses in central Minnesota, well over a day after severe storms brought winds of more than 70 miles per hour.
Alexandria-based Runestone Electric Association said Thursday morning that an estimated 3,000 members remained without power. That number dropped to about 2,000 as of midday.
In addition to its own workers, Runestone said line crews from other utilities around Minnesota were helping with repairs.
The utility said the scope of the damage — spread across nearly its entire service area — was a particular challenge.
The complexity of the damage was also causing delays in restoring power.
“Every outage is its own puzzle. Before repairs can begin, crews must assess the damage, develop a plan and safely make repairs. Many outage locations involve multiple issues, including broken equipment, trees on power lines, downed wire and broken poles,” the utility reported Thursday. “To put things into perspective, replacing a single broken pole can take two hours or more.”
Runestone also noted that “with restoration efforts ongoing, a line that appears de-energized may become energized at any time. Our rule of thumb is simple: if a line is down, it is dangerous.”
Wednesday saw two rounds of severe weather across Minnesota. The first, arriving early in the morning, produced strong winds that caused the widespread downed trees and power lines in central Minnesota.
Those winds are also believed to have knocked about 20 rail cars, carrying new vehicles, off the tracks in the city of Hoffman.
Parkers Prairie was also among the communities hit hard, and the storms also downed trees in the Twin Cities. More than 70,000 homes and businesses across Minnesota lost power in the immediate wake of the storms.
More storms developed on Wednesday afternoon, and some of those produced large hail. Hailstones larger than golf balls caused damage in Wadena.
