Cleanup begins after severe storms Thursday with another round of power outages for Xcel to deal with

Homeowners and public works crews in Cottage Grove are busy cleaning up a mess after the area was hit hard by Thursday's storms.

A few thousand homes are still without power and restoration could take awhile due to the number of snapped power poles. No one was injured and Cottage Grove Mayor Myron Bailey says he's grateful to see neighbors coming together.

"When I first started going over, once I heard about the damage and getting into some of the neighborhoods and meeting people, they were checking on each other where trees had fallen on homes and so on," says Bailey. "And so, very impressed with our community pulling together, making sure they're helping each other out."

Dozens of trees were uprooted and snapped, many falling on power lines and blocking streets. Bailey says they're thankful for the help they received from Washington County clearing streets of fallen trees and hauling debris away.

"I've been mayor for 16 years," Bailey said. "This is the first time, with other storms that we've had where I've seen power poles completely snapped or bent over in our community. So it may, in some parts of our city, it may take a little bit longer for them to get new poles in."

Bailey says some residents have been getting creative.

"I do know that there's been people in Cottage Grove, in this area that have trailers in their in their driveways or whatever, that they're actually staying in their trailers because they maybe have propane or a generator, whatever," says the mayor.

Cottage Grove isn't alone.

The National Weather Service in the Twin Cities confirms a tornado in Anoka County from the storms.

"There is quite a bit of damage, so we're still determining the path length and rating," the NWS said in a social media post . The area they say was hit is just north of Andover.

There are also damage reports and radar-spotted rotation in Isanti County, and another weather crew is going to Pierce/Dunn/St Croix county areas in WI to survey more damage.

POWER OUTAGES

Last night’s storms led to power outages for about 25,000 customers across the Twin Cities. Our crews have been out in the field working quickly to safely restore power and have turned the lights back on for about 15,000 customers so far. Our Outage Map will show you where the remaining 8,000 outages are located. We aim to have power restored to all customers by 10:30 p.m. tonight.

Xcel Energy has confirmed to WCCO Radio that the restoration efforts continue the work crews have been doing since the first round of severe storms hit Monday night.

"Crews have cleared an estimated 5,000 trees across the metro area that were damaged or destroyed by these storms — including 1,700 trees that were large enough to require the expertise of our vegetation contractors. Clearing trees allowed our line workers to safely restore power and will prevent additional power outages that these trees could cause in the future."

Xcel says crews also replaced over 89,000 feet of wire, the equivalent of 17 miles. They replaced or repaired more than 250 power poles and replaced more than 125 transformers so far.