~5/24/18:
I was out fishing with a friend earlier today for a while until we noticed the weather began to turn ugly within a half hour or so after seeing the severe weather warnings on our phones. No kidding-wind blowing dust all around us, distant lightning, and thunder drowning our voices forced us to pack up and head out. Didn't see any trees or branches down, just a lot of swaying and leaves flying around.

While driving back, I noticed a number of intersections, traffic lights, and a few neighborhoods were without power-all of which were powered by a long haul 34.5kv feeder running from Xcel's Afton Sub. A little while later, I arrived at another intersection (which is a mile and a half from the Sub. at this point) which was also in the dark along with the surrounding area. Not sure if the entire line tripped out or if clusters of customers went out. Either way, this 34.5 circuit does cover some serious distance.

Thankfully, my power did not go out as I am on the 13.8 system (the system I am on is fed via a 34.5kv stepdown, which is fed by a different feeder coming from the Afton Sub.) Should anything happen to that 34.5 feeder, Xcel could always switch us to another 13.8kv source which originates from the Oak Park Heights Sub.

One last thing I'd like to note is when I got home, I was listening to some music until I heard a loud "BBBBBBZZZZZZ" that came from outside my window. I looked outside only to see a distant, blue ball of light just down the street from my house. About 15 seconds later, I heard and saw it a second time and then a third before it stopped. Shortly afterwards, I checked Xcel's outage map and saw that 105 customers had just lost power down my street. We have a set of reclosers on the first branch pole on the 13.8kv line onto our street.