Thousands Still Without Power As Minnesota Braces For Another Storm

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (WCCO) - At the height of Wednesday evening's storm, Xcel Energy said there were 200,000 customers without power.

Most outages were brief, but there were still about 35,000 without power on Thursday morning.

At the St. Louis Park and Minneapolis border, an Xcel crew has been working all days. Three power poles were split by lighting; Xcel had to put new ones in, then transfer all the wires, a process that can take around five hours per pole.

The crew is from all over the metro, but Xcel Energy says it is bringing in reinforcements to deal with the clean up and prepare for the next storm.

Around 700 workers have been deployed around the state. By the end of the day, another 300 workers will have been called in from other regions.

"We are continuing to monitor the additional weather impacts that are coming throughout the and tomorrow, so we will continue to restore power as well as monitoring what is ahead of us," said Trisha Duncan with Xcel Energy Community Relations.

Xcel is telling customers that it could be until sometime Thursday evening before everyone gets their power back from Wednesday's storm.