Wind downs street lights, trees in F-M area
High winds toppled street lights and knocked tree limbs onto power lines in the Fargo-Moorhead area overnight, leaving some residents without electricity and keeping utility crews busy.
Xcel Energy spokeswoman Bonnie Lund said about 100 people were still without power at 6 a.m. this morning because of outages at half a dozen locations.
The outages were all wind-related, she said, as tree branches got tangled up with lines or fell onto them, in some cases causing transformers to blow.
Wind speeds of at least 46 mph and gusts of at least 64 mph were recorded late Tuesday at Hector International Airport in Fargo, according to the National Weather Service's website.
The wind had died down somewhat this morning, to 26 mph with a gust of 35 mph at about 8 a.m., but was still causing problems for line crews, Lund said.
"If the winds continue, unfortunately we'll probably have to deal with more issues," she said.
As of 7 this morning, Fargo received 1.8 inches of rain, the weather service reported.