Area recovers from storm

Cape Girardeau spent Thursday morning recovering from one line of thunderstorms that struck the region around 2:30 a.m. and Thursday afternoon preparing for another bout that peppered the area in the early evening.

The first round of thunderstorms, with winds of up to 70 mph, caused about 2,500 Cape Girardeau residents to be without power as late as midmorning Thursday.

AmerenUE spokesman Mike Cleary said Cape Girardeau was one of the cities hit hardest in the utility's service area. Downed power lines were the cause, not lightning strikes, he said. At the peak of the outage around 4:30 a.m., 6,400 customers in Cape Girardeau were without power. The outages were scattered throughout the city.

As of 9 p.m. Thursday, AmerenUE was still working to restore power to 198 Cape Girardeau customers and 4,052 subscribers in its entire service area.

Don Schuette, director of electric utilities for the city of Jackson, said 300 customers lost power for "less than an hour" after lightning "struck a circuit and took it out."

The thunderstorms moved through the region beginning about 1 a.m. in Bollinger County and hitting the fringes of Cape Girardeau County around 2:30 a.m., said Dick Knoff of the Emergency Operation Center.

In Millersville, a fallen tree caused some aesthetic damage to a nearby Jeep, but for the most part, the damage was limited to county roads blocked by trees and power lines knocked down by the high winds and lightning, Knoff said.

Cape Girardeau County highway administrator Scott Bechtold said all the county roads were passable Thursday despite downed trees in the road. Most of the downed trees were concentrated in the area from Lake Girardeau to north of Millersville, he said.

Oak Ridge and Pocahontas saw the most severe damage, but no injuries were reported.

Most cities and towns in the region are dealing with downed tree limbs and power lines. In Cape Gir?ardeau, assistant public works director Steve Cook said much of the damage was concentrated in the areas around Perryville Road and Stoddard Street. "There is a lot of tree damage," he said.

The city dispatched three crews, four high lifts and seven dump trucks. Cook said the cleanup could extend into next week.

Reports of storm-related damage were scattered around the city, with the northwest corner being hardest hit, according to city manager Doug Leslie.

"We had damage just off Bertling with trees, and a small garage and trees down and Pind Wood, off Independence," Leslie said.

Even with an extra crew on duty, Cape Girardeau firefighters could barely keep up with the number of calls, said Capt. Brad Dillow.

"We had 40 to 50 calls, right after the first storm went through, around 2:45 a.m.," he said.

In anticipation of the storm, the fire department called in overtime personnel to staff another engine, Dillow said.

"We beefed up our manpower on our ladder truck, and we ran nonstop with that," he said.

Leslie said a power surge damaged between 15 and 20 computers and the phone system at city hall, but they were able to take calls on different lines.

"We just worked around the issues," he said.

Cook said no flooding was reported in Cape Girardeau. The National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., measured 3.42 inches of precipitation in Cape Girardeau and 3.79 inches in Jackson.

Some minor flooding occurred within the city limits of Sikeston due to drainage problems the city frequently experiences during heavy rains, said Sgt. Jim McMillen of the Sikeston Department of Public Safety.

Various parts of Scott County lost power during the storm, but power was restored around 8 a.m., Sheriff Rick Walter said. Storm damage in Scott County was restricted to fallen trees, mostly near county roads, he said.

In Southern Illinois, officers from the Union County Sheriff's Department took several hours to remove trees from the road just north of Anna, said Brian Hill, spokesman for the sheriff's department. Power outages were scattered throughout the county, he said.

Cleary said AmerenUE sent additional crews from Potosi and Park Hills to help in Cape Girardeau. "We are telling people to have patience, and if they see a line down to call us. It may still be live," Cleary said.

The number to call in case of a safety concern is 800-552-7583.

In Paris, Mo., the Associated Press reported two people dead as a result of a tornado that touched down near a mobile home. The National Weather Service classified the storm as an F-2 tornado that traveled one mile and had wind speeds up to 135 mph.

Staff writers Sam Blackwell and Peg McNichol contributed to this report.

bdicosmo@semissourian.com

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