Thousands of homes in Northeast Minnesota were without power Sunday morning as strong storms rolled across the region.
“I haven’t had power all morning, and it’s 90 degrees outside, so we got a generator, but now we can’t even get it into our house,” said Marie Manzoline, a two-year Hibbing resident.
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As of 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, around 10,000 houses, largely along the Iron Range, remained without power.
Manzoline awoke to her two sons telling her that a storm had passed over.
As of 10 p.m. Sunday, electricity was still out for over 500 Minnesota electricity customers and over 1,200 Lake Country Power customers.
Minnesota Power and Lake Country staff were out working on the restoration.
The National Weather Service said that high winds swept down numerous trees and branches in Hibbing, Chisholm, and other Iron Range areas.
Charles Hackenmueller provided this shot to Northern News Now, catching the moment a transformer exploded in town when a tree fell on some power wires between 16th Avenue East and East 13th Street.
“It was just pouring, and I started taking video, and there was like a big flash behind us that I caught on camera,” Hackenmueller recalled of the incident. “We rotated our car and saw a second big flash.”
Hackenmueller’s video can be found at the top of this story. The explosion did not appear to have caused considerable damage.
The storms also produced a lot of heavy rain in a short period of time.
Power went out instantly in the surrounding area, including the Hibbing Golf Course, which was getting ready for the 18th annual James R. Kiel Memorial Scholarship Tournament.
The event is advertised as a rain-or-shine competition, but course manager Randy Murray was having second thoughts on his drive to the course.
“Leaving my house this morning, I was throwing the PA speaker into the back of my truck, and it was dry,” according to Murray. “Walked back into the garage to grab something else, and when I’m turning around, I’m getting hit by rain 20 feet inside my garage.”
Murray then made it to the course and spoke with the tournament organizer, who chose to wait out the storm. According to Murray, power was restored to the course at 9 a.m., and his groundskeeping crew was able to prepare it in time for the competition.
Murray said the crew will return early in the morning to remove a large tree that fell on hole 7, as well as clean up the other debris, in order to resume normal operations on Monday.
The weather service reported moderate roadway flooding in Hibbing and Chisholm.
This is a developing story.
