Mantorville, MN (KROC-AM News) - Dodge and Freeborn Counties have declared a State of Emergency due to severe damage to the power infrastructure from today’s ice and wind storm.

Dodge County officials, late Thursday afternoon, indicated over 4300 homes were still without power due to damaged power poles and downed power lines. County officials are working to establish emergency shelters in several communities to assist citizens without power. They also noted the utility companies serving Dodge county is indicating it could take between 24 and 72 hours to restore power to everyone affected by the outages.

Earlier today, Xcel Energy reported that about 15,000 of its customers in southern Minnesota had lost power, while two of the electric cooperatives serving the region reported, at the peak between 15,000 and 20,000 customers were affected. At last report, both People's Energy Cooperative and the Freeborn-Mower Cooperative had over 5000 customers still waiting for their electrical service to be restored.

 

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