Prairie Public Broadcasting

Power Slowly Returns in Northwood NORTHWOOD, ND (Prairie Public) - After seeing electricity cut off to the community of Northwood in the wake of Sunday's tornado, officials restored power to the community hospital late Tuesday, and today (Thursday) crews could begin the slow process of recharging homes and businesses. John Bernstrom is a Public Information officer for Grand Forks and is helping in the disaster response...

"With destruction this big it takes time to go through each individual place and figure out what place can get power so that's taking some time now. Thankfully we've had some good weather today - which has helped out."

Crews from power companies around the state are among those helping with the restoration process. The Valley City Public Works -- Electrical Department is among those working in the town. Darwin Suhr is helping replace downed power poles...

"There's probably half of the poles are down - at least."

Suhr says reconstructing a basic power system will take time and it will be much longer before things are fully restored...

"We're trying to get the three-phase lines up so that we can feed out to the houses more. So that's the main goal is to get the three-phase lines up and then they'll start working on single phase lines and getting house services hooked up again. I'd say there's at least six months of work here, or more depending on how many crews end up staying here. To get everything back to the way it was before the storm; that's probably going to be a year or better. It's pretty tore up."

Valley City has sent three trucks to Northwood to aid in the rebuilding. © Copyright 2012, Prairie Public