At least 2,570 Xcel Energy customers in the New London and Spicer communities are still without power following a fast-moving storm that hit the area Monday night.
Power went out around 9:30 p.m.
Most of the businesses in the two Kandiyohi County towns are closed today, including the clinic in New London and Prairie Meadows Learning Center in Spicer, where pre-school classes were cancelled on the first day of school.
The NLS elementary school, middle school and high school get their power from the Kandiyohi Power Cooperative and are functioning at full capacity.
Spicer City Administrators Leslie Valiant said Teal’s grocery and Mel’s gas station have their own generators are are open.
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Residents are being asked to limit water usage to help ease the pressure on the sanitary sewer systems.
The widespread outage is affecting Xcel customers from Fargo, North Dakota to Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Matt Lindstrom with Xcel said by 11 a.m. Tuesday there were 5,100 customers still without power in Minnesota.
He said about 90% of the outages had been restored within 10-12 hours but he did not indicate when the power would be restored in New London and Spicer.
Lindstrom said more than 100 crews made up of more than 350 workers and contractors are “working to get the lights back on in the state right now.”
City crews in New London and Spicer were manually pumping sewage from lift stations by utilizing septic trucks.
New London City Administrator Trudie Guptill said at least eight Xcel trucks are in town working on lines but she’s heard power could be out for most of the day.
Lindstrom didn’t indicate what caused the outage, other than to indicate it was storm-related.
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Valiant said, however, there was limited storm damage in the area and little clean-up required other than small branches and leaves in the streets.
