Electric co-ops send crews to assist Ameren

July 24, 2006

A lineman from Callaway Electric Cooperative, Fulton, uses a "hotstick" live-line tool to operate a circuit breaker on an Ameren power line in St. Louis. Line crews from 19 Missouri electric cooperatives traveled to St. Louis recently to help Ameren restore power following a devastating storm.

Line crews from 19 Missouri electric cooperatives are on their way, or already working to assist crews from Ameren in St. Louis. Ameren asked for the cooperative assistance after powerful storms caused nearly a half million of the investor-owned utility's customers to lose power July 19.

Most of the 91 electric cooperative linemen are assisting in subdivisions and metropolitan areas around St. Louis. Others are working in and around Potosi, another area hard hit by the storm.

"Our crews are in St. Louis now," said Rob Land, who coordinates disaster assistance for the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives in Jefferson City. "They were rolling yesterday afternoon (July 20)."

He said the call for assistance came Thursday, July 20, from Ameren 's Vice President of Operations Tom Voss. The monumental nature of the outages, the worst in Ameren's 100-year history, had the St. Louis utility looking for help from all sources.

While Missouri's electric cooperatives routinely assist each other when outages occur, this is the first time they have gone to help out in a metropolitan area.

"Our first thought was let's go, we need to help these guys out," said Barry Hart, executive vice president of the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives. "This call was an easy one for us to make because these are fellow Missourians. With the extreme heat electricity is essential. It's important to get the power back on quickly no matter who is the supplier."

Lineman from Northeast Power Electric Cooperative, Palmyra, work to restore power in an alley in downtown St. Louis. The recent widespread outage in St. Louis marked the first time Missouri electric cooperative crews have assisted an investor-owned utility on such a large scale.

Electric cooperatives weren't spared from the storm's fury. Members of Cuivre River, Crawford, Black River, Howell-Oregon and Intercounty electric cooperatives experienced significant outages. However, once repairs were made at home crews were released to assist Ameren.

Cooperatives lending assistance included:

• Barton County Electric, Lamar
• Black River Electric, Fredericktown
• Boone Electric, Columbia
• Callaway Electric, Fulton
• Citizens Electric, Ste. Genevieve
• Cuivre River Electric, Troy
• Farmers' Electric, Chillicothe
• Gascosage Electric, Dixon
• Grundy Electric, Trenton
• Missouri Rural Electric, Palmyra
• Osage Valley Electric, Butler
• Ozark Border Electric, Poplar Bluff
• Platte-Clay Electric, Kearney
• Ralls County Electric, New London
• SEMO Electric, Sikeston
• United Electric, Maryville
• Webster Electric, Marshfield
• M&A Power, Poplar Bluff
• Northeast Missouri Power, Palmyra.

Others may offer assistance after their crews rest from their own repair efforts.

"When half a million people are hurting you drop everything and help," said Hart. "There was no hesitation from the cooperatives. The one's that could go, went."

July 24 , 2006
For more information, contact:
Jim McCarty, (573) 659-3402
jmccarty@amec.coop