Ameren Missouri workers sent to Florida to help ease power outages

More than 100 Ameren Missouri line workers have deployed to Florida to aid relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Irma.

"The numbers of outages are still going up, so damage is still occurring," said Mike Lewis, coordinator for Ameren's mutual-assistance crews.

The deployment comes in response to an aid request from Duke Energy, Lewis said.

Missouri is in the Midwest Region, while Florida is in the Southeast one. While such requests typically come from within regions, Lewis said the need is such that the request went out to other regions.

"Their final destination is Orlando, Florida," he said. "Hurricanes are a little bit different by themselves. They're so massive."

The crews tried to leave last week, Lewis said, but when the host utility could not guarantee a facility safe enough to ride out the storm, the crews held off.

"The situation was just deteriorating," Lewis said. "We really don't know at this point in time [how long the deployment will last]."

Hospitals, nursing homes and transportation needs will be assigned high priority for repair efforts, Lewis said, followed by residential areas.

More than 100 Ameren Missouri contractors previously deployed to Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey will respond to Florida as soon as ongoing Texas relief efforts are completed.

"This is a much bigger event than anything we've seen in the Midwest," Lewis said. "We tried to offer as many (aid workers) as we could."

About 20 of those who deployed Monday are from Southeast Missouri.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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