Hundreds of people just outside Alexandria have gone without heat on Thursday following a car crash that lead to a natural gas leak.

Around 2:30 a.m., a suspected drunk driver struck above-ground natural gas overflow pipe along County Road 42 near Carlos, prompting the evacuation of nearby homes and a power shutoff.

The gas leak has since been resolved, but the outage continues to impact about 525 homes in the area, according to CenterPoint Energy, with the outage happening on a night that temperatures plunged into double-figures below zero in west-central Minnesota.

"With below zero temperatures expected today and ongoing cold over the coming days, CenterPoint wants to assure customers that the company will work quickly to safely make repairs and restore service as soon as possible," t

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