BEMIDJI — Crews worked around the clock over weekend to restore electricity to thousands of Bemidjians and Beltrami County residents.
The severe storm early Saturday morning, June 21, dramatically impacted the area amid intense heat and humidity.
National Weather Service Grand Forks meteorologist Jacob Spender said the storm reached wind speeds of more than 100 mph.
"Seeing the waves of the trees were kind of taken down, and all of that, I almost would say — because I have worked in the East Coast of the United States and seeing the damage from hurricanes — I would almost compare looking at it to, 'Oh my gosh, this kind of looks like hurricane damage,'" Spender said. "But it's not. It's straight-line wind damage that occurred with the 100-mile-per-hour winds."
Nearly 20,000 Beltrami Electric Cooperative customers outside of Bemidji city limits lost power, with power restored to nearly 18,000 customers as of Monday morning. Inside city limits, Otter Tail Power Co. expected to have power almost completely restored Monday evening.
Bemidji Fire Chief Justin Sherwood requested interstate mutual aid, with fire trucks from Crosslake, International Falls, Staples and beyond coming in to assist.
"We've had now 18 fire departments help us over the last three days, and I bet hundreds of firefighters," Sherwood said. "You know, I'm turning away firefighters. People from all over the state of Minnesota are here, [from] as far as the metro are here, and everyone here just wants to help.
"And so that's what's going on here. And the reason we did this was to give our firefighters and responders the opportunity to go home and assess their damage, rest, recover."
Many public buildings and facilities remain closed to the public as crews work to assess facility and grounds damage, including city parks, Bemidji area school facilities and the campuses at Bemidji State University and Northwest Technical College.
Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince expressed his gratitude to the power companies, which also brought in aid from cooperative partners. He also said that as of Monday afternoon, no fatalities were reported as a direct impact of the storm.
"I first left my house on foot at 5:30 in the morning [Saturday] because I was blockaded in, and I was able to get a ride from a neighbor to get to my work and get a vehicle and start driving into the city," Prince said.
"And, you know, as I was seeing all this, honestly, ... my first thought was, 'How many people have we lost? You know, how many people lost their lives?'"
Local resident David Brumbaugh said his property lost four large trees, with one landing on his house and uprooting his sewer line. He said he believed this storm was worse than the 2012 straight-line windstorm that hit Bemidji around the Fourth of July. He shared his list of essentials.
"I certainly did well after having gone through the 2012 storm," Brumbaugh said. "I did get up and I went to the kitchen, the closest door to the basement.
" ... After looking at the storm, I did load a few things into a small plastic bag, put them in my backpack. You know — my telephone, I must admit, my revolver, ... extra cigarettes.”
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