RED WING, Minn. -- Several communities in the state spent Saturday cleaning up following powerful overnight storms.
Wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour uprooted trees and knocked out power to nearly 40-thousand Xcel Energy customers.
The storm left its mark in southeastern Minnesota as well.
Red Wing's Emergency management director, Roger Hand, says it appears only Red Wing was victim of widespread winds in Goodhue County, possibly straight line winds that came after midnight.
Near the Red Wing Golf Club, the Belisle family heard cracking trees, and hail.
"When we woke up today, it was amazing, it was the worst it's ever been," said Diane Belisle.
Golf club members put aside clubs and picked up chainsaws instead. All over town, strong winds tangled power lines and snapped century old trees. The storms caused a power outage at the Seminary Home, a nursing home care facility, but come daylight staff realized it was much worse, with a fallen tree crushing an employee's car.
"Just trees, nobody got hurt," said Don and Kathleen Turvold, surveying a giant tree uprooted in their backyard.
Neighbors called the Turvolds' home from their cabin with several power lines came down with their old tree.
"We bought the house because of the trees. That is 25 years ago, we've been in this house 25 years, so it's special," the couple said.
Within hours, the clean-up had to be in full swing. The golf club welcomed a group of 50 golfers from the Twin Cities.
"We didn't expect when we came down from Minneapolis it would be this bad. Once we got here and saw gentlemen cutting trees, it's like wow," said Rock Rogers, of Richfield.
"Hard to find balls as you can see but we are trying to make the best of it," said Richard Marshall, of Inver Grove Heights.
Hand says amazingly, to his knowledge, only one roof in Red Wing caved in as a result of the storm, and he hasn't heard of any injuries.
He says with so much debris left behind, Red Wing will open up its city demolition site to the public to drop off all fallen branches.
(Copyright 2012 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)