Xcel: St. Cloud Area Power Outages Could Last Into Monday

It could take through Monday for Xcel Energy crews to restore power to all the Central Minnesota homes and businesses that lost power in Friday's storm.

That includes St. Cloud, Sauk Rapids, Sartell, Annandale, Cokato and Dassel, as well as several communities near Montevideo: Belview, parts of Bird Island and the Cosmos area.

Xcel says more than 100 workers were in the field Saturday, repairing transmission lines across a large swath of the region. Xcel's asking neighboring utilities for help in restoration efforts.

But those efforts were hampered by saturated soil and muddy conditions Saturday as crews worked to assess the damage from the air and restore 50 transmission structures and poles.

Xcel says miles of transmission lines were strewn across farm fields, roads and railroads and had to be removed first before crews could focus on power restoration.

Even so, the utility was able to restore power to 85,000 customers across the region. Some 4,200 customers remained without electricity as of late Saturday afternoon.