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Severe Weather Damages Trees, Homes, Power Lines

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- Heavy rain and brisk winds blew into North Saint Paul just around suppertime. Jeff Schmidt was at his son's baseball game in Oakdale when he a neighbor gave him a surprise call.

"When we got here the fire department was already on the scene, and they went in and did a structural assessment just to see what the interior looked like," Schmidt said.

A century old ash tree, rotten at the base, snapped off-- smashing squarely into Schmidt's garage.

"That tree, for all we know, could have been there since 1890... somewhere in that area,"

A neighbor's house was slightly damaged, too. Schmidt says structures can be repaired-- he's just thankful no one was home at the time.

"Our other son had just left and went to a friends house down the street, too, and he was in there," Schmidt said. "So we're really blessed for that."

Tree branches into power lines caused scattered outages. Xcel Energy reports some 33,000 customers lost service. One of those large branches blocked the northbound lane of Lexington Parkway.

City crews quickly went to work removing the hazard and buzzing up what mother nature just brought down.

And almost as quickly as this thunderstorm hit it was over. Over, except for those with damage. Tomorrow will be their day of cleanup.

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