For immediate release

Feb. 17, 2009 — 10:30 a.m.

Power restored to 6,796 Pemiscot-Dunklin members; Ozark Border, SEMO complete

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

Lineworkers working to repair ice storm damage at Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative made a huge gain Monday when they restored power to a large portion of Dunklin County. Starting at 8:30 a.m., crews energized the Kennett substation and, working south, restored power to approximately 6,796 members.
 
Elsewhere, SEMO Electric Cooperative, Sikeston, was able to complete repair work to its members on Monday. Ozark Border Electric Cooperative, Poplar Bluff, had about 26 member without power and expected to complete work today. Statewide outage numbers dropped to 1,921.
 
At Pemiscot-Dunklin, additional substations were brought online throughout the day Monday as transmission crews working for M&A Electric Power Cooperative completed their work in the Dunklin County area. By day’s end, power was restored to all of the cooperative’s substations except for three, which serve southern Pemiscot County and the area between Hayti and Kennett that includes the cooperative’s office.
 
Crews worked until almost midnight taking care of isolated outages. Work continued in the Gideon area today where some problems cropped up overnight and elsewhere as minor problems associated with damage repair were taken care of.
 
Outage numbers for the cooperative dropped to just 1,895 as the hard work of more than 1,000 lineworkers paid off. In the three weeks since one of the worst ice storms in Missouri history hit the Bootheel, linemen from cooperatives in Missouri, Iowa, Mississippi and Louisiana, along with contract workers picked up from Ameren UE, replaced more than 7,000 broken poles and rebuilt approximately 1,260 miles of line. That distance would extend from St. Louis to the California state line.
 
Efforts by M&A crews today will focus on a transmission line running from the cooperative’s Bucoda substation to its Denton substation in the southern Bootheel. When repairs are made to that line, the cooperative can energize most of southern Pemiscot County. A backfeed should allow service to the Wilkerson substation located behind the cooperative office, which is still operating on a generator.
 
As substations begin to come online once more, the public is urged to take extra precautions when working near power lines. Any downed line should be considered dangerous. People working to clear storm debris should be aware of any overhead power lines.

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