by John Sucansky
Thisweek Newspapers

Only 10 minutes after Lake‚ville's emergency sirens shrilled, strong, heavy winds began tearing trees limb from limb in the downtown area at 6:30 a.m. June 24.

Shortly after the sirens sounded, the calls started rolling in to the police department's dispatch center, 59 calls in two hours.

Capt. John Arvidson said there was a definite line the winds followed as they tore through the city. With damage limited to the southern half of Lakeville, residents along the southern edge of Lake Marion, through the downtown and east into Farmington felt its destructive power.

Most downtown residents described it as tremendously loud and accompanied by the crash of trees as they fell around their homes.

The majority of damage was limited to downed trees and power outages. Entire trees uprooted, littered the ground as city crews and private tree surgeons began work on cutting them up.

No municipal buildings were damaged in the storm, according to Arvidson, and no injuries were reported. Power was out in the downtown area for most of the day.

Mary Sandok, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy, said of their customers in Dakota County, 2,246 were without power from Hastings to Lakeville. She said power was restored to all customers that were able to receive it by the evening. She said many customers had damage to their own equipment on their homes and this needed to be repaired before they could receive power again from Xcel.

Joe Miller, a public relations specialist with Dakota Electric, said approximately 5,000 customers were without power until the evening from Hastings to Lakeville. By 11 a.m. power had been restored to all but 1,000 customers and the last of the power was restored by 9 p.m.

Lakeville's Director of Maintenance and Operations, Don Volk, said approximately 50 of the city's boulevard trees were lost in the storm while hundreds of others lost limbs but were salvageable. Residents are allowed to bring storm damage debris to the curb for pick up by the city, but it is limited to tree limbs and debris from the June 24 storm only, he warned.

Some city streets also experienced some localized flooding that receded within a couple hours. Volk said a stretch of 207th Street west of the railroad tracks in downtown Lakeville was probably the worst he saw with 12 inches of standing water for several hours.

The vast majority of trees damaged in the city were mature trees. Volk said many beautiful, majestic trees were lost in the storm.

Lakeville Parks and Recreation Director Steve Michaud said 17 larger trees were lost in Aronson and Antlers Park and the Lakeville Area Arts Center. The remainder of the storm damage was cleared in the parks and throughout the city by Thursday.

John Sucansky is at lakeville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

Top of Page

Check out this week's newspaper for more about your community.

Thisweek Newspapers
12190 County Road 11, Burnsville, MN 55337
Telephone: 952-894-1111 Fax: 952-846-2010