Update: Lake Country Power crews still working on 114 outages

Lake Country Power says there are still 114 outages they are working on after the storms, impacting more than 1000 members.

That’s down from the 8,700 members impacted at the height of the Memorial Day storm.

The majority reside in Itasca County with 500 members remaining without service and 390 more in St. Louis County. Also impacted are parts of Cass County, Lake County and Aitkin County.

For safety reasons, line crews will be sent home at 11:00 p.m. tonight for much needed rest after working 16 hours straight. Stand-by/on-call crews will pick up the workload and continue through the night until the rested crews begin again at 7:00 a.m. for another 16-hour shift tomorrow.

Lake Country Power doesn’t expect service to be fully restored for at least one more day due to the number of broken poles that need replacing. In some hard-hit areas, full sections of line must be rebuilt, which takes time.

The severe holiday storm busted at least 30 poles, blew trees onto power lines, downed power lines and damaged infrastructure. Once the ground is saturated from a lot of rain, it doesn’t allow the trees to hold root during storms that produce sustained high winds.

Lake Country Power reminds everyone to stay away from downed power lines.

Check online: http://outage.lcp.coop/#viewer-menu-parent