For immediate
release
Contact: Jim McCarty
(573) 659-3402
(573) 680-2451
Jan. 31, 2008 — 11:30 a.m.
Electric co-ops brace for bad weather
Missouri’s electric cooperatives are bracing for severe weather as the National Weather Service predicts a winter storm will hit the state in the coming hours.
At this time, we are anticipating heavy snow without the ice accumulation
that caused outages in December. Snow generally causes far fewer problems
for electric cooperative lines. However, we have crews standing by should
outages occur.
Missouri’s electric cooperatives have considerable experience dealing with winter storms. When large numbers of outages occur, the Emergency Assistance Procedure coordinated by the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives in Jefferson City is enacted.
As outages occur, electric cooperatives call the association to request help. The association staff coordinates bringing in crews, equipment and supplies from unaffected parts of the state to lend assistance. If the disaster is widespread, cooperatives in other states will also send help.
As the storm develops and details of any outages become clear, we will update this Web site with the latest information. In addition, this Web site has links to all the electric cooperatives in the state at http://www.amec.org/coops.html. Additional information may be available there as well.
For more
information, contact Jim McCarty at the Association of Missouri
Electric Cooperatives — (573)
635-6857, ext. 3402, jmccarty@amec.org.
-30-