CLARKS GROVE – Chris Hansen heard the ice and snow pelting his windows late Wednesday night into Thursday morning as he tried to sleep. Then the power went out.
And it stayed out.
“Everyone in town is without power,” Hansen said, rigging his generator outside of the garage. “That’s just the way it is.”
Nearly every building lost power in Clarks Grove, a small Minnesota city of 700 people, about 10 miles north of Albert Lea on Interstate 35. The powerful wind gusts subsided by late afternoon, but the town still spent most of Thursday grappling with the aftermath of this frustrating April storm. Freeborn County declared a state of emergency and closed several roads where utility poles had toppled the path.
Sindi Fulton still managed to drive around Clarks Grove in her Chevy Equinox, using the car’s battery to power her cell phone.
She needed to call her mom, who uses a lift chair to move around her house.
“If there’s no electricity, it doesn’t operate,” Fulton said, parked outside a hardware store in town. “So she has a hard time getting in and out of it. I just want to make sure she can get around.”
Customers in Clarks Grove are served by Xcel Energy, but the majority of Freeborn County and neighboring Mower County pay for Freeborn-Mower Cooperative Services – which reported more than 2,000 outages as of 9 p.m. Thursday. A spokesperson for FMCS said crews spent most of the morning assessing the damage, but they called in extra help from outside the area once it was safe to make repairs.
At one point, more than 300 utility poles had fallen, according to Freeborn County Emergency Management Director Rich Hall. Many of the downed lines fell in extremely rural areas of the county, making repairs difficult for utility crews.
Some people in these two counties may not regain electricity until the end of the weekend, although crews had already restored power to thousands by Thursday evening.
With some people needing warmth and food for the next few days, Freeborn County opened three shelters in Alden, Albert Lea and Clarks Grove.
Ellen Piecej took advantage of the shelter in Clarks Grove and plans to stay for at least a few days – or until the electricity returns.
“I can’t stay in the house with my medical conditions,” she said. “If I get sick, I’ll wind up in the hospital. I’ve already been there once, and I don’t want to go back.”
Fulton, who’d been charging her phone with her car battery, said she’s going to try to ride out the power outage as long as possible.
“If I have to, my last resort would be to stay in a hotel,” Fulton said. “I do have to get into work at some point.”