Severe storms cause major damage across northern Minnesota

Severe storms with winds of more than 100 mph left major damage across a wide swath of northern Minnesota overnight.

The storms also produced tornadoes across eastern North Dakota, with authorities reporting at least three people killed by a tornado that touched down late Friday near Enderlin, about 35 miles southwest of Fargo.

In Minnesota, Bemidji was among the communities hit hard by the storms — with officials advising against unnecessary travel in the city and surrounding area on Saturday morning due to numerous downed trees and power lines.

The National Weather Service said a 106 mph wind gust was reported at the Bemidji airport just before 1 a.m. Saturday.

At about 2:30 a.m., Beltrami County Emergency Management reported “extensive damage around the Bemidji area and much of southern Beltrami County. Please do not travel unless it is an emergency. Many roads are blocked and there are a ton of power lines down. Unfortunately there is significant structure damage as well. We are responding to many gas leaks. Please hold non-emergency calls to dispatch as they are overwhelmed.”

Utilities were reporting more than 50,000 homes and businesses without power across northern Minnesota on Saturday morning. Beltrami Electric Cooperative reported “widespread outages across our entire service area.”

“There are trees down, buildings damaged and there is damage to Minnkota’s transmission lines as well,” the utility reported during the early morning hours. “This will be a joint restoration effort as the lines feeding our substation need to be repaired before we can restore power. We will know more once daylight comes, but we expect this will take more than a couple of days.”

The storms continued rolling east across northern Minnesota overnight, producing hail, strong winds and torrential rain before clearing the state by sunrise.

Flood advisories were in place through Saturday afternoon for the Iron Range and parts of the North Shore, following the heavy rain overnight.

Organizers of Grandma’s Marathon between Two Harbors and Duluth delayed the start of Saturday’s marathon and half-marathon by 30 minutes due to the storms.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.