Crews push to get the power on after northern Minn. storms

Utility crews have made progress restoring electricity to thousands of homes following Thursday morning's intense thunderstorms that wracked northern Minnesota, but it will be several more days before power returns to the entire region.

The powerful line of storms with wind gusts that topped out at nearly 100 mph toppled trees and power lines in Duluth, Brainerd, and other Minnesota communities.

Early Thursday morning, shortly after the storms passed through, more than 75,000 people were without power.

"I hesitate to use the word catastrophic," said Mike Birkeland, a spokesperson for Lake Country Power, which serves parts of eight counties in northern Minnesota. "But this is massive, this is extensive, this is one of the biggest storms we've ever seen in this neck of the woods, and we've had some big ones."

The electric cooperative at one point had about 27,000 members without power. That number had been reduced to about 17,500 by late Friday morning, Birkeland said.

But he added it will take "days, not hours" before everyone has power. He said it will likely be early next week before some of the scattered, more remote outages are fixed.

Minnesota Power's customers in Duluth may face nearly as long of a timeline.

"There's still numerous trees down on lines, or there are lines that are down, or there are power poles that are broken," said spokesperson Amy Rutledge. "The devastation in Duluth was just so severe, that's why this restoration time is as extended as it is."

Rutledge estimated it will likely be Sunday before power is restored to all the utility's customers. About 27,000 households and businesses were still without power Friday afternoon, down from about 48,000 shortly after the storm hit.

Both Lake Country Power and Minnesota Power have called in additional line workers to help, with some coming from as far away as St. Louis, Mo.

Rutledge said this outage is lasting so long because trees fell on multiple big transmission lines, the backbone of the electric grid. Most of that was restored Thursday, but the utility also has to repair main feeder lines before it can start addressing secondary lines along neighborhood streets.

"It goes without saying how much we appreciate our customers' patience," Rutledge said. "We know this is a disruption, and we're doing everything we can to restore life to normal."