Power restored across most of Twin Cities after storms, but pockets still in the dark

A large majority of Xcel Energy customers who lost power during severe storms that ravaged the metro area and much of central Minnesota on Monday night and Tuesday have electricity back, but some spent Wednesday without service and may have to wait a third day before the lights come back on.

More than 1,800 workers were in the field restoring power, a job that could take until Thursday evening, Xcel Energy spokesman Theo Keith said Wednesday.

As of noon, 80% of those affected by the back-to-back storms that felled trees and power lines were back online, Keith said. Shortly after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, about 11,200 customers were still in the dark.

“In general, we try to make repairs that get the largest number of customers back in service as quickly as possible,” Keith said. “Crews then start to address smaller outages affecting a few customers at a time.”

The largest remaining outages as of late afternoon Wednesday were in St. Paul, where about 4,500 customers lacked electricity and the Como Park neighborhood accounted for many of the outages. Among other cities in the metro area, Edina (821), Lake Elmo (602), Oakdale (502) and Richfield (458) reported the most outages, according to Xcel Energy.

In Edina and Richfield, outages seemed to cluster in a neighborhood along 66th Street between Cedar and Penn avenues S., the utility said.

Connexus Energy, which serves Isanti County, reported more than 1,300 customers without service earlier Wednesday, but that figure had dropped 899 by early afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.

A storm packing 60 mph winds hit the metro area Monday evening followed by a repeat performance Tuesday morning. The violent storms toppled trees, downed power lines, flipped over boats, sent tree limbs falling onto buildings and vehicles and destroyed docks all across Isanti County, with the areas of Spencer Brook, Bradford and Isanti townships hardest hit. No injuries or deaths were reported, the Isanti County Sheriff’s Office said.

In total, more than 250,000 Xcel Energy customers were affected by the two rounds of severe storms. At the peak Tuesday morning, about 150,000 customers were without power, the utility said.

In places without power such as the Como Park neighborhood in St. Paul, those with electricity were helping neighbors in need. One person put out an extension cord and power strip so residents could charge their phones and other devices.

“There’s also a pot of coffee,” a post on the Como Park Neighbors Facebook page read. “Help yourself.”

Others reported food outages at the Richfield Target where freezers and refrigerators were empty because of the prolonged power outage.

Another round of strong to severe storms could develop on Thursday across southern Minnesota, the National Weather Service said.

Staff writer Elliot Hughes contributed to this story.