Storm makes dent in Brainerd lakes area

Severe thunderstorms early Thursday brought strong winds and a heavy downpour of rain to the Brainerd lakes area, downing hundreds of trees and leaving thousands of people without power and with a lot of clean-up.

The storms left more than 7,000 Crow Wing Power households without power in the Brainerd lakes area, with a concentration of outages surrounding Brainerd/Baxter from Motley, Fort Ripley, Nokay Lake to Nisswa. Minnesota Power had about 6,300 customers without power at the height of the storm.

Amy Rutledge, communications manager at Minnesota Power, said by early afternoon, that number dropped down to 1,069, with about half of the customers being from Pillager.

Crews worked to clear downed trees from power lines and damaged poles late into the afternoon Thursday.

Char Kinzar of Crow Wing Power said just before 3 p.m. all but 1,300 of its customers had power. Kinzar said crews worked through the night and they "hopefully anticipated" that power would be restored to the remaining households by Friday morning. The 1,300 household that had no power Thursday later afternoon were in the areas of south Baxter, South Long Lake and Lake Shamineau/Fish Trap Lake.

"These were the three messiest areas that were destroyed by trees," said Kinzar. "Luckily these type of storms don't happen too often. It's frustrating when you don't have power."

Kinzar said crews waited Thursday morning for two transmission companies to repair their lines so their substations could be fed again. The transmission lines are owned by Minnesota Power and Great River Energy and are the main large power source for the substations. When the substations are back up and running, Kinzar said they needed people to call in their power outage a second time to give them a true picture about who was really out of power.

Large trees fell onto the transmission lines, which is a rare occurrence, Kinzar said.

The two affected substations were Nokay and Southdale, which affected members in the Baxter, South Long Lake, Fort Ripley and Nokay Lake.

Brainerd residents had their work cut out for them as hundreds of trees and power lines were down in the city. The Brainerd Fire Department responded to 16 calls starting at 6:46 a.m. to 1:53 p.m. Thursday of downed trees and power lines. About 16 firefighters responded to the variety of calls that were reported in the areas of D, Rosewood, Willow, Pine and North 10th streets, Buffalo Hills Lane and Spruce Drive. Brainerd police also responded to the calls to make sure none of the downed trees and power lines were life-threatening or posed a hazard. The falling trees were the culprits in most of the outages.

Brainerd Public Utilities (BPU) Superintendent Scott Magnuson said late Thursday afternoon an outage in the northeast Brainerd area was the last area to have its power restored. Earlier, around 7 a.m., west and south Brainerd lost power as the storm hit Brainerd. Magnuson said crews were dealing with single residence outages and power was returned to parts of west Brainerd by around 8:30 a.m.

BPU Finance Director Todd Wicklund said on Thursday afternoon there continued to be isolated outages in south and west Brainerd.

"We're not dealing with the 'onesies and twosies,'" he said.

Wicklund said he expected power to be restored to most Brainerd residents by Thursday afternoon.

Trevor Walter, Baxter's public works director/city engineer, who sat in dark offices Thursday morning at Baxter City Hall, said 50 percent of the city didn't have power. By 2 p.m., most everyone had power. Walter said 12 out of the city's 24 lift stations were down, including one of the city's main substations, Southdale. And because there was no power, the city's water plant was down. However, Walters said the city had enough water supply for residents. He said the plant holds two million gallons of water and the city uses 1.2 million gallons a day.

Walters said Baxter's drinking water is fine. He said the city did not lose pressure in its water and they don't have a precautionary boil order like Brainerd does.

Walters said two crews worked throughout the day with the flooded areas and downed trees and power lines. There were several hundred trees down in the city, with about 40 trees down alone on Knollwood Drive.

"Crews Thursday focused on getting all the trees cleared off the bituminous surface of the streets," Walters said. "We plan to get all the roads cleared tomorrow (Friday), as well as the road right-of-ways and the trails.

"Power lines were still down (Thursday afternoon) on Highland Scenic Drive and Highway 210. The crews did a very good job and hit every street to be cleared off. ... We weathered well."

Not all structures weathered well in the storm. Two gables and pieces of roof sheetings caved in on one of the apartments at Cypress Court in Baxter. No injuries were reported, but 20 residents were displaced.

Essentia Health Clinics in Baxter, Brainerd and Pillager closed Thursday because of limited water and no power.

Billboard signs and business signs were down throughout the Brainerd area including signs at North Central Speedway, Pinnacle Recovery Services and Taco Bell.

Manion Lumber and Truss in Pillager lost one of its lumber sheds in the storm and the city also had no power.

An explosion of sparks lit up the early morning sky in Pillager for resident Derek Hines, who saw his neighbor's massive tree fall into a power line.

Hines spent the morning cutting the tree up for LouAnn Lindberg, later with the help of a group of teenagers from the Pillager Area Charter School.

"I don't even know where to start," Lindberg said, surveying the rest of her lawn, which was full of branches. "I really don't. What a mess."

Derek's wife Beth, who took Thursday off to help clean the mess, said she was getting her two children ready for school when the tree hit the power line.

"It was blowing really hard," Beth Hines said. "I thought we were on the 'Wizard of Oz.' The kids freaked out."

Bryan Hutchison, who works in Pillager, said there were many trees and power poles damaged in Motley, where he lives.

Les Fundine, Pillager Fire assistant chief, said firefighters were busy since 7 a.m. going to calls of downed trees and power lines. Calls included a medical and a car crash. Fundine said the areas that got hit the hardest included the areas of Big Water Drive, Lower Sylvan Road, Pillsbury State Forest and Hardy Lake Road.

"I couldn't begin to tell you how many power lines were down," said Fundine.

Several buildings damaged at Camp Jim in Pillager were damaged, including two stories flattened on a building under construction, a tree through one cabin, another tree on top of the office building, and sheds flattened.

About 50 trees were knocked over, including several 80-foot pines, said camp director Tony Masurka.

Masurka estimates at least $40,000 in damage for the building that was under construction, but couldn't estimate yet just how much the other damage will come to.

Brainerd lakes area schools also felt the ripple effects of the storm.

Without water or power, Central Lakes College campuses in Staples and Brainerd were closed Thursday.

Two buildings in Brainerd Public Schools were without water and power for most of the day, said Superintendent Klint Willert.

Portable toilets and coach buses were brought to Forestview Middle School and Baxter Elementary so students could use the restrooms.

Each of the schools in the district experienced some power outages at different times, but everything was restored by 1:30 p.m. Thursday.

"Things went, with some minor distractions, relatively well," Willert said.

Since the city is on a precautionary boil order, 10,000 bottles of water will be dispersed throughout the district Friday for students and staff.

Classes continued at Pillager Public Schools, despite the power outage.

Most of the classrooms had enough natural light from the windows to carry on as normal, said Superintendent Chuck Arns.

The dark hallways were nearly the only evidence of an outage.

A handful of fifth grade classrooms in the center of the building don't have windows, so those students were moved to the commons area.

Arns said power went out at 7:25 a.m., which was too late to call off school. But since the water was still working, he kept classes running.

"Kids are safe here," he said.

Frankly, most are pretty excited, he said.

"This is cool to them. They'll remember it forever," he said.