A wave of violent storms blew through the Twin Cities area Friday night and early Saturday, and again early Sunday, leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity and utility crews scrambling to restore power for frustrated customers.

As of 11:30 a.m. Sunday, 97,000 customers were without power, the vast majority in the Twin Cities, mostly in the west metro, said Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Hoen.

Storms early Sunday morning knocked out power to an additional 10,000 customers.

At the worst point, as many as 279,000 people had no power. Around 9 a.m. Saturday, that number had dropped to 246,000 and by noon it had shrunk to 219,000.

The level of power outages is “one of the highest we’ve ever faced,” said Dave Sparby, utility president and CEO, in a statement.

Some customers may be without power until Wednesday afternoon, even though 1,000 technicians were called in from Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa and are working 16-hour shifts. More crews are expected Sunday afternoon and evening.

Gov. Mark Dayton signed an executive order Saturday to ease restrictions on out-of-state utility trucks coming to help out.

“We have absolutely every available resource out in the field right now,” said Hoen. “By the end of the day, we will have in excess of a thousand linemen out there, trying to restore power.”

After a more typical thunderstorm in which 15,000 or so people might lose power, Xcel would typically deploy around 100 linemen, Hoen said. This time, damage was more intense.

“We had so much rain and the ground was already saturated, so it wasn’t like we were getting reports of a branch down. We were getting reports of an entire tree down.” Hoen said. “We saw reports of that all throughout the metro.”

Since Friday, a total of 554,000 Xcel customers were affected by the storms, Hoen said

METRO GUSTS REACH 69 MPH

The wind and rain blew into the metro area Friday after raking across central Minnesota. Gales from the first storm lashed the metro area around 3 a.m. Residents got a 17-hour respite before being socked by a second storm around 8 p.m.

Each storm was short, but intense.

“They were fairly brief, like a half-hour or 45 minutes,” said Bill Borghoff, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Chanhassen. “Storms like this come through pretty quick and leave pretty quick, but they do a lot of damage.”

Borghoff said a pressure ridge just to the south of Minnesota was creating a breeding ground for storm cells.

“This is pretty much a classic scenario,” he said. “Certainly, the last couple of days, we’ve been under the gun in terms of thunderstorm systems developing just west of us and rolling east across the metro.”

The National Weather Service said a wind gust measuring 69 mph was reported just before 8 p.m. in Crystal in the northern Twin Cities. At the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, a gust of 61 mph was recorded around the same time. A “severe thunderstorm” has gusts over 58 mph, while a hurricane has gusts topping 74 mph.

WIDESPREAD STORM IMPACT

Besides leaving power-less residents hot, cranky and adrift in humid, muggy weather the storm’s impact was widespread.

In Roseville, heavy tree damage and localized flooding prompted Mayor Dan Roe to call a state of local emergency. In an emergency meeting Saturday, the Roseville City Council voted to assist property owners with tree, brush and debris disposal.

Light rail trains were on schedule and most bus routes had to detour by only a block or two to avoid downed trees, according to Metro Transit spokesman John Siqveland.

Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department Major Darrell Huggett characterized damage reports as widespread and scattered, but not amounting to apocalyptic damage. “It’s pretty normal high-wind stuff,” he said.

Multiple sirens are offline in Hennepin County, mostly in the western suburbs, because of power outages, said Huggett. Tests have been done that show there is “adequate coverage” with the remaining sirens, Huggett said. “The sirens are intended for outdoor warning,” Huggett said. If bad weather starts, those indoors should use the internet, radio or television to get forecast updates and alerts.

Planes at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport were grounded for about 30 minutes during the worst of the 8 p.m. storm, according to spokesman Pat Hogan, but there was no lasting damage or disruption.