For immediate release

Feb. 18, 2009 — 10 a.m.

Pemiscot-Dunklin cuts outages to 100; expects to finish today

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

Crews working to restore power at Pemiscot-Dunklin Electric Cooperative are close to restoring power to all members today. Only 100 outages, scattered around the Bootheel, remain to repair. All other Missouri electric cooperatives have fully restored power.

At 4 p.m. on Tuesday, contractors working for M&A Electric Power Cooperative, which supplies transmission to Pemiscot-Dunklin, completed work on a line that connected the Bucoda substation with the Denton substation in southern Pemiscot County. This allowed the cooperative to restore service to approximately 1,200 members here and in the Maplewood community.

About an hour later, crews completed work that allowed the Wilkerson substation located behind the cooperative’s office to be reenergized, along with another 600 members and businesses. Crews then worked late into the night troubleshooting individual accounts and minor problems that cropped up.

“We worked late last night to get everyone we could back on,” says Manager Charles Crawford. “We hope to finish with the last 100 homes and businesses today.”

While restoration of power was the first goal, crews will not slow down in their efforts to get all signs of the ice storm damage repaired. Crawford says the focus now will be to rebuild approximately 800 three-phase banks vital to members.

Lineworkers on loan from other cooperatives, along with contractors, will remain with the cooperative until this work is complete. “We are going to get ourselves straightened out,” Crawford says. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, that’s for sure. I am just so thankful for all the help given to us and the hard work they did.”

In getting the cooperative to the point it is at today, those workers replaced nearly 9,000 poles and rebuilt more than 1,200 miles of line.

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