Xcel Energy reported Saturday morning that some 125,000 customers were without power Friday night into Saturday after a line of severe thunderstorms struck Minnesota causing extensive damage to trees, poles, and power lines. Later on Saturday, the number was upped to 135,000 customers who lost power due to the storms.
125,000 customers had power as of later Saturday afternoon with about 10,500 awaiting power restoration primarily in the Twin Cities.
"We had crews out immediately assessing and repairing the damage," Xcel Energy's director of community relations John Marshall said. "Our meteorologists and emergency operation crews were watching the system a day in advance. We stock up on materials and get equipment and crews ready so we're ready to roll when weather happens."
Digging without locates can be dangerous and costly – Failure to call for locates could result in damage to our underground systems (electric and natural gas), fines to the property owner, and could cause serious injury or death to you. https://t.co/9FX1bII4YO pic.twitter.com/TS4gPf2CiP
— Xcel Energy MN (@XcelEnergyMN) August 15, 2020With so many off the grid, there may some public concern of an overload on the grid once its restored for thousands at one time. Marshall says the system isn't one to worry about.
"The grid is a very resilient machine," he said. "It's built for a lot of redundancy and is robust to take on the additional load once all those customers get back on. As those customers come back on there will be zero issues. The grid takes it and is able to handle all of it at once."
For up-to-date information on power restoration following Friday night's storms, you can view the Xcel Energy Outage Map for Minnesota here.
