About 7,500 Lake Country Power customers remained without electricity this morning after two rounds of severe storms this week, the utility reported.
Strong winds Monday evening knocked out power to 11,500 customers, primarily centered near Grand Rapids and within a 150-mile radius of the city. About 6,000 of those customers remained without electricity this morning.
A second storm Wednesday left more than 2,000 customers without electrical service to the north, between Togo and Ely; about 1,500 of them were without service this morning.
While crews are making progress restoring power, their efforts have been slowed because of the magnitude of the storms and the amount of destruction to the electrical system, Lake Country said. In many areas, crews have to chain-saw their way through the right-of-way to reach poles that broke and have to be replaced. Lines are down in many locations as trees uprooted or fell into the wires from the high winds.
