Updates on Power Outage in Duluth

Many People Still Don't Have Power

At least 200 poles and miles of power lines fell in the storm that swept through the Northland last week.

Some of the areas hit hardest were Woodland, Hunter park, Morley Heights and Lakeside neighborhoods, where many of the residents still have no power.

Minnesota Power representatives expect that some of the Rice Lake Neighborhoods power will be restored Sunday night, and Duluth Heights should be seeing power by Monday night, but some of the areas with more damage, may not get power until Thursday Night.

“We have to first repair the problem at our generating stations, and then our big transmission lines, which had a lot of damage caused by trees falling on them,” said Amy Rutledge from Minnesota Power.

.The process of restoring power comes in phases

“We get to our feeder lines and then we are able to really hone in and concentrate our efforts on these residential neighborhoods,” explained Rutledge.

And because many poles are in people’s backyards where things like trees and flowerbeds limit access, the process is taking longer than expected.

In some of the neighborhoods the power goes through the middle of the lot lines, which means households in the same neighborhood could be on 2 different phases

“We’ve tried to energize as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time so that means some people on one side of the block may get power, some people on the other may not depending on which phase is energized and which phase is damaged the most,” said Tim Laeupple, of Minnesota Power.

The crews are still working 16 hour work days to bring the power back.

“Please be patient, we are getting to you, we are aware of the outage, and we’re working on it,” said Rutledge.

For Safety Reasons, Minnesota Power advises that you don’t try to remove trees that are touching or leaning on power lines, and to stay away from downed poles and lines. In the studio I’m Lena Takada KQDS FOX 21.