Xcel Energy hopeful it can restore power to thousands across Twin Cities Metro by end of day Monday

Xcel Energy’s hopeful it will restore power for thousands of customers in the Twin Cities that were left in the dark by weekend storms that brought heavy rain, hail, and straight line winds.

As of 10 a.m. Monday , about 1,250 Xcel Energy workers including lineworkers and support staff had restored power to 80 percent of the 135,000 customers who lost their power across the metro.

“It was a pretty widespread storm,” said Xcel Energy’s Regional Vice President, John Marshall. “Certainly a lot of water-saturated ground, plus rain, and really vegetation were the big impacts to our systems. We had a lot of broken poles, trees tipped over into lines, and with that wind we had vegetation flying all over the place.”

Marshall said despite storms in the metro early Monday morning causing an hour delay in repairs, he remained confident crews would be able to get power restored metro wide by the end of the day.

“We’re well prepared for these types of situations,” he added.
“We have equipment, poles, and crews always at the ready. We’re tracking weather forecasts days in advance with our own meteorology. It’s a big one, and we’ve been through this before.”

Mutual aid has been called in from other states which is helping to speed-up the power restoration process.

“All storms have their different challenges, I think the ones we really get concerned about are those that add risk to public health when you don’t have power,” Marshall said. “These hot days in the summer and those deep cold days in the winter are really our focus areas with extra concerns. We care deeply about public health. We understand people rely on our product and our energy 24/7, 365 days out of the year.”

Hot and humid conditions have added to the already complex repair efforts with crews taking frequent breaks and rest on Sunday.

Xcel Energy urges customers who remain without power to check for damage to their mast, which is the electric connection to their home.
If that is damaged, a licensed electrician must make repairs and it must be inspected before service can be restored.