For immediate release
Contact: Jim McCarty
(573) 659-3402
(573) 680-2451

Feb. 14, 2008 — 10 a.m.

Ice storm restoration continues

View the latest information about Missouri co-op systems affected by winter storms. UPDATE: 4 p.m. Feb. 15 1,250 still waiting restoration

Work continues as electric cooperative crews restore power to southern Missouri members affected by a winter storm that blanketed the region with up to an inch of ice on Monday.

Statewide outage numbers have steadily declined to around 10,000 by Thursday morning from as many as 29,000 during the height of the storm. Several electric cooperatives report all members back in service.

The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives’ Emergency Assistance Program has directed crews from unaffected cooperatives to the hardest hit areas.

Four cooperatives reported restoration efforts are complete or nearing completion Thursday morning. Howell-Oregon, West Plains; Intercounty, Licking; Laclede, Lebanon; and White River Valley, Branson have restored power. Four other cooperatives number outages in the hundreds instead of the thousands.

The hardest hit cooperative has been Black River Electric, Fredericktown, where an estimated 5,000 members remain without electricity. According to John Singleton, marketing manager at Black River, Bollinger County is the epicenter of the damage. He estimates a 10-mile-wide swath on either side of the Highway 34 corridor from Ellington to Piedmont to Jackson is where the vast majority of outages are located.
 
“That area is heavily wooded, lots of timber,” he said. “The other problem is our guys can’t stand up on this ice. There’s a half-inch to 1 inch of ice on top of sleet. We still have some main lines off, but the transmission problems are all taken care of.”
 
Line crews from Cuivre River, Troy; Boone; Columbia; and Ralls County, New London; are assisting efforts. Even Black River Manager Tom Steska, a former lineman, is in the field working the outage.
 
Those co-ops that have completed restoration efforts remind consumers that additional outages could occur as damaged trees fall across lines. They encourage members who find themselves without power to call the office as some could have been missed.

They also ask that members do not clear storm debris from around power lines. Any downed line should be considered live and dangerous, even if there is no power to the member’s home.

Latest outage estimates
- Black River, Fredericktown: 5,000 - Citizens, Ste. Genevieve: 400 - Howell-Oregon, West Plains: Restoration complete
- Intercounty Electric, Licking: Restoration complete
- Laclede Electric, Lebanon: Restoration complete
- Ozark Border, Poplar Bluff: 170
- Ozark Electric, Mount Vernon: 250 - Se-Ma-No, Mansfield: 800
- SEMO, Sikeston: 1,300
- Webster, Marshfield: 2,300 - White River Valley, Branson: Restoration complete

For more information, contact Jim McCarty at the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives — (573) 635-6857, ext. 3402, jmccarty@amec.org.

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