Crews Work To Get Power Restored In N. Mpls.
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Officials from city, state and federal government were tallying up the damage after the storm in north Minneapolis. They're deciding how much federal assistance is needed, along with the city and state recovery efforts. One problem still being dealt with is the lack of electricity.
Craig Hayman has been out checking to see what progress is being made since Sunday's tornado snuffed out power to thousands of homes in north Minneapolis. More than 4,000 north Minneapolis customers are still without power as of Wednesday evening.
"Our lines will withstand a tremendous wind force but when you've got shingles and siding and trees and all of that hitting the lines, that's when you tend to have trouble," he said.
Hayman said crews have had a hard time getting to areas needing service because of all the debris sitting on city streets. Once they got in, crews have been working 16 hours on and 8 hours off to restore power.
"We started with about 26,000 people without power. By isolating the damaged area we got that down to about 8,000-8,500 and of those 5,000 remain without power," he said.
Hayman said his crews are working as fast as he can and are determined to restore power to all those without as quickly as they can.
"We're optimistic. We believe a lot of people will be put on this afternoon. They'll be a significant number put on tomorrow and we're very hopeful that by this time tomorrow we'll be down to a few singles.
