Minnetonka and West Metro Hit Hardest During Recent Storms

Updated 11 a.m. Tuesday

As of 11 a.m. today, Xcel Energy has restored power to 591,000 of approximately 610,000 Minnesota customers who experienced an outage during a wave of thunderstorms that rolled through the region over the weekend. Approximately 19,000 customers remain without power.

They expect to restore power to the vast majority of those customers by the end of day Wednesday, June 26.

"If you are one of the customers still without power, we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience," Xcel officials said in a release. "This marks the most severe storm outage event we have experienced in several years."

Updated: Monday at 7 p.m.

Xcel Energy crews, contractors and mutual aid responders continue restoring electricity service after severe storms Friday that knocked out power to nearly 610,000 Minnesota customers.

As of 5 p.m. Monday, crews had restored power to more than 570,000 customers in the Twin Cities, St. Cloud and other parts of Minnesota. Work continues to restore the remaining 39,000 customers, located primarily in the west Twin Cities metro area. Xcel Energy expects to restore power to the vast majority of customers by noon Wednesday.

Original post: Monday at 9:30 a.m.

The storm damage clean up continues, but many people in Minnetonka and other west metro cities are still without power.

"There's about 49,000 out in the west metro and 57,000 system-wide," said Minnesota Xcel Energy Spokesman Tom Hoen. "The hardest hit areas look to be Golden Valley, Plymouth, Minnetonka and Maple Grove."

Right now Xcel Energy has upwards of 1,000 linemen from 14 different states on the ground working on restoring power, he said. (Click here to check on your neighborhood.)

"We're wrapping up getting everyone back up," Hoen said. "Once an area is back up we don't just pack up and go home. We saturate each area to make sure is back up and running."

How does Xcel determine where to go first?

"Our first priority is always public safety so wherever there is a live downed wire we always handle those places first," Hoen said. "Then we go to critical care structures like hospitals, fire departments, daycares and the like."

To serve its customers, Xcel then works on a system of going to the areas where they can bring power to the most people at one time.

"If we can put 1,500 people with power at one time we'll go there before we go somewhere with only 50 people," he said.

As of 6 a.m. Monday, Xcel had restored power to 571,000 of its customers. Crews are working 16 hour days, according to the company.

Minnetonka Public Works crews were out Monday clearing trees from public property, including anything within six feet of the curb line.

"The assessment this morning was that we had about 50 trees down on public property," said Jacque Larson, community relations manager with the city of Minnetonka.

Some trees are still tangled with electrical wires, and all electrical wires are assumed live until Xcel Energy determines otherwise. Therefore those trees will not be cleared until Xcel Energy crews arrive and assess the situation.

If you have a downed tree on your property and need a tree contractor, check this list. To accommodate the storm damage, the Minnetonka Brush drop-off will be open all days this week (Monday–Saturday) from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 12–6 p.m. for Minnetonka residents only. Learn more on the city's Brush Drop-Off page.

The city asks that residents help prevent street flooding in event of rain in the next few days by checking the stormwater catch basins on the street near your property and clearing and discarding any debris from them by putting them in your brush drop-off pile.

Also see: 

• Canceled: Minnetonka Summer Festival and Ice Cream Social
• House On Ashborne Road a Total Loss After Lightning Strike
• How Hard Did the Storm Hit You in Minnetonka?
• Lightning Ignites Home On Leaping Deer Lane in Eden Prairie