Lake Country Power crews made significant progress to restore service for 4,000 members by 9:00 p.m. Monday, June 29, when a second wave of severe weather knocked power out overnight for 12,000 members at the height of the storm.
As of 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 30, nearly 6,900 cooperative members are without power. Crews are working to restore service at 223 outage locations across most of Lake Country Power’s service area.
Crews are responding to damages, including downed trees, downed lines, storm debris and broken poles.
Lake Country Power is asking for mutual aid from neighboring cooperatives and utilities. North Itasca Electric Cooperative is sending two crews to assist. Lake States Construction continues to assist LCP line crews.
“The crews worked through the night last night hoping to make progress and completion from the first storm, but then a second storm set us back worse than the first one,” said Derek Howe, chief operating officer for Lake Country Power. ““We will hit the outages at full strength once mutual aid is available but in the meantime our crews are working full force. Tonight we will have all crews rest after 11 p.m. for safety reasons as the three standby crews in each area respond to emergencies.”
Late Monday night, a transmission line outage (not owned by Lake Country Power) serving the co-op’s Sand Lake Substation went down but has since been repaired.
The online Outage Map was repaired late last night and should be reporting accurate numbers.
Lake Country Power appreciates members’ support as restoration efforts continue through the night. Crews are working safely and as quickly as possible to restore power.
The cooperative estimates a minimum of two full days before full restoration of service, unless more severe weather happens between now and then.
If you see a downed power line, stay away. Also, do not remove debris or cut trees near power lines or rights-of-way.