Energy Provider Works To Restore Power In Wake Of Snowstorm

Xcel Energy is getting help from bordering states to restore electricity for all its customers in northwestern Wisconsin and southeastern Minnesota.

At the peak of yesterday’s snowstorm 64,000 customers had lost power. By noon today, fewer than 5,000 were without power. Xcel Energy’s Brian Elwood says the outages are in a wide swath. People without power are either gutting it out or staying with family or friends.

“Fortunately, most of our customers were restored within a pretty reasonable amount of time. We certainly do appreciate everybody’s patience as we’re restoring service. This is a very unique storm: a lot of downed power lines, a lot of downed tree limbs as well. So navigating the roads has been difficult, not only for Xcel Energy but our customers as well.”

Elwood says 330 crewmembers from Xcel and other utilities are working in difficult conditions. Xcel western operations field manager Dan Plourde says field crews are working 16-plus hour days and then try to squeeze in eight hours of shut-eye. “When we’re in storm mode, it’s priority work. Everything else is dropped.”

Plourde says this storm with more than a foot of heavy, wet snow from Eau Claire to Ashland is one of the worst he’s seen, but they are trained to work in all kinds of situations.

“The guys have a lot of years of experience. The lines that are not right along the road right-of-ways – they’re hiking through the woods at 10 at night looking for downed wires. So yeah, it’s part of the job.”

Power companies from Minnesota and Iowa have sen t crews to help Xcel. Plourde expects everyone to have their power restored by late today.