MINNEAPOLIS — The sun came up on a spectacular Saturday morning, a perfect day for launching the boat, riding a bike or generally whiling away the hours in a slack, summer-sort-of-way.
But for many, there was a problem ... there was serious work to be done.
Powerful storms that swept across Minnesota Friday brought suspected tornadoes, torrential rain and straight line winds that snapped trees in half or simply pulled them - root and all - right out of the ground.
Some of those trees pulled power lines down with them.
Xcel Energy updated the number of customers without power at the peak of the problem Friday night from 125,000 to 135,000 customers.
Xcel says they called in crews from multiple states to do repairs on broken poles and downed wires.
Some of those outages are on the north side of Minneapolis, Robbinsdale and Crystal, near where an EF-0 tornado was confirmed to have touched down Friday evening by the National Weather Service.
Large, old growth trees were pulled out of the ground or knocked over by strong winds. Some landed on homes, others on cars and a bunch landed in the middle of residential streets, leaving them impassible. In Minneapolis images shared with KARE 11 indicate that neighborhoods along 41st Avenue on the city's north side seemed to be particularly hard hit.
Ward 4 Councilman Phillipe Cunningham posted on Facebook after driving around to assess damage and "get the right kind of help out." Cunningham says four crews from the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board are working to clear streets and walks. "2 assigned to north, one to NE, one to south," Cunningham wrote. "When NE and S are done all four will be in N. Will work until dark. And again tomorrow."
Minneapolis spokesperson Sarah McKenzie says the city will be picking up debris during the week. Debris should be piled neatly near waste bins. Street and traffic light issues should be reported to 311. Other ways of reporting storm-related problems can be found on the city website.
In Robbinsdale city crews got out early Saturday to push downed trees to the side of roads so residents and emergency crews could get through. City leaders say those trees will be picked up and disposed of Monday and Tuesday.
The city also told residents who hire private contractors to remove downed trees from their property that the remains must be hauled away, and not left for city crews to dispose of.
Mike Menth, who lives in a hard-hit area of Robbinsdale, spent most of his Saturday morning clearing debris from his lawn. His neighbors did the same, or hired private contractors to help with bigger jobs.
Just behind Menth's house, a neighbor's property saw a tree topple on top of a power line -- which knocked out electricity to the whole neighborhood.
"Everything was fine, and then in the blink of an eye, it was like, 'Boom.' Done," Menth said, describing how quickly Friday night's storm materialized. "Looks like a lot of trees, a lot of power outages, and a lot of damage."
