Power may not be fully restored until Sunday after the snowstorm, possibly Monday, Xcel says

St. Paul, Minn. — The April Fool’s Day blizzard brought heavy, wet snow, damaged power lines and left thousands without power. Xcel Energy said about 280,000 customers across Minnesota and Wisconsin were affected by the storm.

“I woke up this morning and it was 58 degrees in my house. It’s usually 68 degrees,” said St. Paul resident Doug Strandkest.

The outage in the Strandquest neighborhood forced some businesses, including Trader Joe’s, to close Saturday.

“Our neighbor has an iguana here, so he was trying to find something to run his heat lamp on, it’s bad,” Steve Kelso said.

Steve Kelso also lost power. He says he’s warming up in the truck because the temperature at home is dropping.

“This morning we just drove around to warm up, check the neighborhood, see if there’s any damage. We got food. You can’t do much at home without electricity, it’s cold out there,” he said.

A few doors down from Kelso, Scott Slagle is also in the dark. He cannot use the ventilator to sleep.

“I really feel for people who have problems with medical devices, it’s really sad, I mean, if mine was a serious case, what would you do? I think you should go to a hospital or a hotel,” he said.

With about 1,000 workers from 10 different states working, Xcel says power will be fully restored by Sunday, possibly Monday. As utility crews continue to work to restore power, Xcel reminds people to stay away from power lines.

“When it comes to power restoration, top priority is given to situations that pose a threat to public safety, such as live wires. The priority for repairs is based on what restores power to the largest number of customers the fastest, such as transmission lines or feeder lines. That serve the largest number of customers,” – they say in the utility company.