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Heavy Winds Knock Down Trees, Cause Power Outages

DENVER (CBS4) - Heavy winds overnight knocked down trees across the Denver metro area and caused power outages for thousands of customers.

At 4 p.m. officials with Xcel Energy said 15,000 customers in the Denver area were without power. That is down from 50,000 earlier Wednesday. Most of those without power include areas of Greeley, outside Fort Collins and the Denver metro area.

Arapahoe High School in Littleton was forced to call off classes Wednesday after their power was knocked out.

Frank Giuliano shared these photos he took on Wednesday morning of a tree blown down in the 2800 block of Stuart Street in Northwest Denver.

Washington Park was also an area where there were multiple trees that were knocked over or had large limbs break off in the high winds.

Police had to direct traffic on a large stretch of Logan Street during the morning rush hour because traffic lights were out. The outage ran from Evans to Iowa.

Katie Wedum, who lives near the park, told CBS4 that around midnight the winds got "pretty ferocious" and that is seemed like a hurricane was passing through.

"I was pretty surprised when I got woken up in the middle of the night and saw this," she said, looking at the large tree limb that fell on the back of her Audi.

Wind DamageKatie Wedum inspects the damage. (credit: CBS)

Wedum said she feels lucky because she said she came out minutes before the limb fell to get some things out of her car.

Winds also blew out windows at the Byron Rogers Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver at 20th and Grant. Just before sunrise dozens of city workers broke out the brooms and swepts all the broken glass off the street.

(credit: CBS)

Wind speeds above 60 mph were recorded in several different spots in the metro area.

The winds were also strong across many other parts of the state. CBS4 forecaster Lauren Whitney said gusts reached as high as 89 miles per hour on Loveland Pass.

Winds

A mobile construction sign along I-25 near Washington blew into a car late Tuesday night. The driver, CBS4 Assignment Editor Doug Hoffacker, was not injured. A school bus driver stopped behind Hoffacker's disabled vehicle to help keep traffic from hitting the vehicle. CBS4 Assignment Editor Doug Hoffacker's vehicle was struck by a mobile construction sign on I-25 due to high winds Tuesday evening. (credit: Doug Hoffacker)

READ/WATCH LATEST CBS4 FORECAST: More Whipping Winds Ahead

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