Power restored in Wakefield

WAKEFIELD — Residents in the city of Wakefield had their power restored on Saturday evening after power outages started early Friday night.

The outages began momentarily on Friday afternoon, around 3:30 p.m. But by 5 p.m., power was out entirely in many locations across Gogebic County.

On Friday evening, Xcel Energy’s power outage map on its website showed reported outages stretching from Ironwood to Lake Gogebic. Some temporary outages were also reported in Oma, Wis., in Iron County.

Throughout the outages, more than 3,000 people were left without power, and power was restored to locations in Ironwood and Bessemer by Friday night.

However, as 10:30 a.m., on Saturday, 50 percent of the city of Wakefield was still without power, according to the Gogebic County Sheriff’s Department.

To help battle the cold temperatures, the Municipal Building in Wakefield, formerly Father Daniel Hall, was opened to residents as a warming center.

In total, 3,145 customers were affected. On Friday night, an Xcel Energy employee said the cause of the outage was believed to be a circuit breaker, but on Sunday night, employees were unable to give a definitive answer to the cause of the outage.