Power Restored To Downtown Minneapolis After Outage

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Xcel Energy has restored power to customers in downtown Minneapolis, after nearly one-third of them lost power for about an hour and a half Tuesday morning.

The outage was caused by a fire in an underground electric vault, according to Xcel. The company said they had to turn off the energy in the system to allow crews to assess and repair the damage.

The areas affected included businesses between 3rd and 8th Streets North and between 2nd Avenue North and Nicollet Avenue. That included the west side of Hennepin Avenue, Block E, Target Center and Butler Square.

Across the metro area, about 6,500 homes in the Twin Cities were without power Tuesday morning, due to the storms that passed through overnight.

Xcel Energy said the majority of homes would have power restored by noon.

Outages have also been reported in other metro suburbs, including Stillwater, parts of Roseville, Eden Prairie and St. Paul.

Xcel wanted to remind customers who experience an outage that they should call 1 (800) 895-1999 to report the outage.