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TIM POST: No one is sure if it with straight line winds or a tornado that tore through the Brainerd area. But one look at John McKay's farm, east of Brainerd gives an idea of the storm's power.

A piece of gray metal siding pops as it twists in the breeze. Standing in the rubble, McKay says he thinks it was a twister that destroyed his farm and killed 20 head of his cattle.

JOHN MCKAY: This was a 50 by 100 foot machine shed built three years ago. And that's gone. And the barn, the house got it pretty bad. There's 2 by 4's broken right off on the side of the house, went right through the plaster stucco siding.

And then what killed a lot of the cows is the silos fell on the cows. The cement blocks fell on the cows because they were just below the cement blocks. They were all huddled behind the barn. And that fell on them. And just like bullets, it just took care of them. That's had to happen to somebody.

TIM POST: McKay says about half of his losses here will be covered by insurance. He doesn't know if he'll rebuild. He's not sure he can afford to.

While McKay and his neighbors clean up the mess, Brainerd residents worked on other damage.

SPEAKER: On the east side of the road is washed down.

TIM POST: A highway patrol officer stops traffic as crews clean off Highway 18, east of Brainerd. The workers say they think a tornado swept through here, tearing down a whole row of pine trees and ripping off the roof of the house across the highway.

This was the second time in three days that central Minnesotans have dealt with damage from severe weather. Monday night, tornadoes and straight line winds ripped through Benson, Spicer, Litchfield, and Grove City. Last night's storm dumped up to five inches of rain on Morrison, Todd, and Crow Wing counties. Straight line winds damaged homes in Long Prairie and Little Falls.

Local officials estimate 75 homes were damaged in the Brainerd area, with a few destroyed here, east of town, and the entire city spent the day without power. The storm knocked down several power poles and took out the town's main power line. Intersections in Brainerd were a bit of a challenge without the help of stoplights, and business owners tried to carry on the best they could without electricity.

Two employees at a convenience store in Brainerd are throwing plastic wrapped sandwiches into a box. After 14 hours without power, the coolers are starting to warm up. So the sandwiches need to be moved. Manager Ken [? Godringer ?] says they can't pump gas without power, but they're still in business.

[? KEN GODRINGER: ?] We are selling merchandise and doing it the old-fashioned way, manually writing things down, and making changes like that, and so forth. So it seems to be working pretty well.

TIM POST: Power was restored early in the day to critical locations like the hospital and fire stations. City officials say they expect things to get back to normal in Brainerd in a few days. City Administrator Dan Vogt says it could have been much worse.

DAN VOGT: Actually, if the storm path would have been just a little bit further to the north and northeast, there's two pretty large trailer courts that would have been in its path. So we really, I think, lucked out as far as the main brunt of the storm path.

Governor Ventura sent 50 National Guard troops to Brainerd this afternoon to help with the cleanup. Central Minnesotans hope they get a chance to clean up. The forecast calls for more severe weather again tonight.

Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio, Brainerd.