State of emergency declared in Beltrami County after a powerful storm leaves thousands without power

BEMIDJI – Sam Graves was grateful to be standing Saturday, unlike the toppled ancient oak trees in his yard along Lake Boulevard that totaled his car and changed this city.

“From here on out, it’s going to be a different Bemidji,” said Graves, an instructor at the Headwaters Music & Arts school. “It was a pretty jarring experience, feeling that pressure in your ears change because of the wind.”

Straight-line winds of more than 100 mph overnight Friday spared no Bemidji neighborhood or business. Widespread power outages were reported in the area and thousands were left without water and air conditioning amid an intense heat wave.

Mayor Jorge Prince said Bemidji will need weeks to recover from what he called the most damaging storm to ever hit the city. Even after the debris and downed trees are cleared, he said, a permanent scar will remain.

“You drive around and you just realize there’s certain parts of it that aren’t ever going to be the same again,” Prince said at the Red Cross station set up at the Sanford Center to help displaced residents.

Craig Gaasvig, chair of the Beltrami County Board, declared a state of emergency in the county owing to the storms “that wreaked havoc on our county.”

In a statement, he said no injuries or loss of life had been reported.

“Our emergency managers are on the ground in Beltrami County and ready to assist local authorities in the wake of severe storms last night,” Walz said in a post on X.

The National Weather Service in Grand Forks had yet to confirm whether any tornadoes touched down in Minnesota.

In North Dakota, a tornado killed at least three people near Enderlin, a small town southwest of Fargo.

In Bemidji, the destruction was everywhere: toppled streetlights, roads littered with metal siding ripped off roofs, tree tops floating in the lake.

Every intersection without working traffic signals had become a four-way stop, leading to several reported crashes. A driver struck a bicyclist Saturday morning as crews rushed to clear debris with chain saws and boom trucks.

The mangled mess was met with an outpouring of emergency resources.

The annual Loop the Lake biking festival around Lake Bemidji was canceled Saturday, but food for the event was donated to Sanford Center, where volunteers cooked burgers and distributed cases of water.

Amy Bowles, public health director for Beltrami County, said the center would serve as an overnight shelter for residents who couldn’t return to homes that were either damaged or too warm without air conditioning.

The temperature Saturday afternoon was 85 degrees.

“We’re expecting that this will be up and operational for three days to a week or more, just depending on how long it takes to get people into some type of stable housing,” Bowles said.

Most businesses in Bemidji were closed or selling cash-only perishable foods so they wouldn’t go to waste, such as the Dilly Bars at Dairy Queen.

“I might have to go to Grand Rapids to go put fish in my friend’s freezer. The other stuff is replaceable,” said Joe Banta of Bemidji. “I went fishing all day yesterday, 13 hours out on the lake.”

At Greenwood Cemetery, dozens of snapped and uprooted trees lay in the grass, pointed west. Several headstones had been knocked over.

Monaya Magaurn, 40, visited the cemetery with an electric chain saw to clear the graves of her grandparents and father.

The storm caused extensive damage at Northwest Technical College’s building for plumbing and HVAC systems. Shattered windows exposed rows of computers and equipment to the rain.

Jim Hoffman, who leases the building to the school, boarded up the windows and said it was a good thing school was out for the summer.

“It’s going to take a long time to clean it up,” he said.

The atmosphere was expected to catch its breath Saturday before unleashing again on Sunday.

Timothy Lynch, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, said more severe weather was highly likely and more isolated tornadoes could not be ruled out.