On the morning of Friday, September 17, residents of the Twin Cities metro area woke up to overnight storm damage that left over 60,000 people without power. Residents, businesses and schools of Cottage Grove were not spared from the power losses that morning.

Even into the late afternoon hours of Friday, many businesses and residents still had not received power back, complicating the rhythms of many people’s days. District 833 in Cottage Grove had three of the district’s elementary schools closed for the day. Those schools were Hillside, Pullman, and Nuevas Fronteras Spanish Immersion and students and staff were given the day off from classes due to the power outages.

“Well, for any emergency, we phone, text families, so they’ll get on their mobile phone,” said Pepe Barton, Director of Communications for District 833. “Those are the best ways to reach families, specifically the phone and the text over email. So that’s what we did this morning. We know it’s probably multiple neighborhoods without power too. Currently our kids don’t necessarily take their devices home every day so with that, it’s just those three schools we just closed for the day.”

Many morning coffee stops were without power on Friday morning, putting the morning work commuters passing through Cottage Grove in a pickle with where they would get their caffeine to start their day. One place where people could stop and get their coffee that still had power was the Cottage Grove Target. One of the barista’s working that morning was only on their third shift on the job, and received high praise from the Cottage Grove and Surrounding Area Neighbors Group on Facebook.

Some local chain restaurants were also delayed to open their doors for business because of power outages. McDonalds did not have their drive thru open until the late morning in time for lunch and Noodles & Company did not even open until 2:30 p.m.

Fortunately for all shoppers on Friday the essential grocery stores in the area were running with power such as Hy Vee and Cub. PetSmart still couldn’t provide any of their services without power and the neighboring Planet Fitness was open for anyone who was willing to exercise in the dark and without the ambient noise that usually comes with a public gym.

One residence off of Ivystone Ave by Crossroads Church had countless branches fall into their lawn over the night of the storm. Photo by Theodore Tollefson