Stewartville Hoping For the Return of Electricity Friday Afternoon

Get our free mobile app

Stewartville, MN (KROC-AM News) - While most of the significant power outages caused by Wednesday night's storms in southeastern Minnesota have been resolved, more than a thousand homes and businesses are still without power this morning.

At last report, just over 1200 customers of People's Energy Cooperative in and around Stewartville were still without power. The problem is associated with major damage to the utility's power grid caused by the hurricane-strength winds that raked the region Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. Officials are saying they hope to have electrical service restored to most of the affected Stewartville properties this afternoon, but it could take longer for some individual homes and businesses with localized storm damage.

The Olmsted County Sheriff's Office says Bear Cave School in Stewartville remains open for use as a shelter for anyone in need.

A spokesman also reported this morning that power has been restored to almost all of Byron, although a few homes are still in the dark due to storm damage at those properties. Rochester Public Utilities has also restored power to its customers affected by the historic storm. The utility is currently reporting just one outage involving a single property near the Rochester Airport. At the peak, about 100 RPU customers lost power due to the storm and around 200 were still without service Thursday evening.