For immediate release

Feb. 11, 2009 — 9:30 a.m.

Co-ops suffer setback from stormy weather

View the latest information about Missouri co-op systems affected by winter storms.

Electric cooperatives fighting to get members back on line in the wake of the massive January ice storm suffered a setback Monday night as stormy weather pounded the area. Sustained winds in the 20-40 mph rage and gusts as high as 60 mph hammered lines just repaired and caused new outages for all three southeast Missouri electric cooperatives.

“We definitely had some challenges last night and this morning,” says SEMO Electric Cooperative Communications Manager Glen Cantrell. “When you have high winds, standing water and new poles in the ground, that’s a recipe for disaster.”

Cantrell said SEMO had power restored to all but 691 of its members on Monday before the severe weather moved into the area. “Things are fluctuating so fast we can’t get an accurate number. We make big strides and then we get a big setback,” Cantrell said.

Still, the cooperatives have turned a big corner on the outage situation, with SEMO hoping to get outage totals back to Monday’s levels by the end of today. At Ozark Border Electric Cooperative, Poplar Bluff, similar big gains had been made on Monday before wind and rain knocked out power to three substations.

Despite the setbacks, Ozark Border reduced its outage numbers to under 1,000.

At Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative, Hayti, Manager Charles Crawford said an initial survey showed the newly repaired lines stood up to the onslaught of wind and rain. “I think they survived it OK. I haven’t seen anything out of plumb. They’ve done a good job putting it back up.”

But standing water would make further repairs difficult today.

“It’s wet, I mean wet,” Crawford said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this much water standing. It’s not helping things, but our crews are still going after it. They worked in the rain yesterday too.”

There are now 7,250 Missouri electric cooperative members without power.

With the outage situation in its third week, members and employees alike are feeling the strain. “I talked to one lineman last night, a person I respect a lot,” SEMO’s Cantrell said. “He said, 'I’m tired. I haven’t seen my family in a long time. I want to hurry up and get this over.’ It’s frustrating to all of us, but we just keep going, keep plugging away.”

Crews will keep working in the rain today as long as severe weather doesn’t threaten their safety.

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Editor's Note: For media inquiries, contact Jim McCarty at 573-680-2451