Nothern Scott County coping without power

GERA LEGRAND ~ glegrand@semissourian.com Downed trees blocked U.S. 61 at Benton, Mo., Wednesday morning. There were reports of falling trees and power lines blocking roads and causing outages throughout the county. [Click to enlarge]

UPDATED 4:22 p.m.

Towns in Scott County are still without power, as crews work frantically to fix lines snapped by the weight of the ice. In Chaffee, 1,928 of 1,930 AmerenUE customers are without power, while all 834 customers in the Benton ZIP code are without power, and may be for five days, according to the AmerenUE website.

Residents of Scott County towns were busy Wednesday trying to keep warm while crews began the long process of power restoration.

About 30 Chaffee residents enjoyed a warm meal at the Chaffee Nutrition Center on Main Street Wednesday afternoon.

Chaffee lost power around 10 p.m. last night, and the nutrition center is relying on a generator to power the heating and kitchen, said Kevin Payne, emergency operations director for the city.

Only four Chaffee residents stayed at the designated emergency center Tuesday night, sleeping on couches, but if more need to stay tonight, cots have been requested from the Red Cross.

Mary Ann Phillips, of Morley, Mo., lost power at her own residence Tuesday afternoon and had finally agreed to let her daughter come pick her up, because they still had power in Chaffee.

When the lights went out in Chaffee Tuesday night, the family stuck it out, and headed to the warming center Wednesday morning. Phillips daughter, Kathy Blevins, bundled up food from her own cupboards to bring to the warming center, and helped prepare a lunch of soup and biscuits.

The volunteers helping at the warming center kept an eye out for struggling motorists, lending a hand throughout the morning when someone got their car stuck in the snow.

In nearby Oran, firefighters have responded to at least 20 to 30 calls of power lines down, and fallen tree branches littered nearly every secondary street.

Look for more details on power outages from hard-hit Scott County later today on semissourian.com.