A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news

Storm causes power outages

Lake Country Power line crews responded to a growing number of outages on Wednesday during the winter storm, and they were expecting to add to the more than 1,900 co-op members in the region without power as the snow piled up into Thursday

The snowstorm dumped heavy wet snow across the region, causing trees to sag and snap onto power lines. Some lines are down and at least one broken pole has been reported so far.

Most outages were being caused by lines slapping together from the wet snow, Lake Country reported. When the weight of the snow releases off lines it can cause the lines to “gallop” or slap together, which blows a fuse and causes another outage to occur. If power has been restored and later goes out again, line galloping could be the reason.

The greatest concentration of outages reported Wednesday were in Carlton County. Lake Country also serves customers in Itasca, Aitkin, Cass, and Pine County.

Line crews were delayed by slick roads where travel wasn’t recommended.

Minnesota Power also had outages reported in the region Wednesday, with more than 5,000 without power, including customers in Cloquet and to the southwest along the Interstate 35 corridor.