Fewer in Cape without electricity, Delta still powerless

Utility crews continue to make progress restoring power in Cape Girardeau, but people in Delta, Mo., aren't so lucky.

As of 6:30 a.m. today, 1,996 AmerenUE customers in the Cape Girardeau area were still without electricity, compared to the 2,483 without power at 9:20 p.m. Wednesday.

But in Delta, the 209 AmerenUE customers without service Wednesday night remained without service Thursday morning. AmerenUE's Web site shows there are 278 customers in the Delta area in total.

In AmerenUE's Jackson service area, 375 customers remained without power this morning, compared to 382 Wednesday night.

At last check, Jackson's public utilities had restored power to about 85 percent of its 6,500 customers Wednesday night.

AmerenUE is tracking outages in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois on its Web site.

The Southern Illinois Electric Cooperative's system had 7,234 meters out of 11,595 in Alexander, Johnson, Massac, Pope, Pulaski and Union counties without service as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Thirty Missouri National Guard soldiers were activated late Wednesday, and they'll begin door-to-door wellness checks in Cape Girardeau and Bollinger counties this morning.

The fixed electric outages are good news, but the National Weather Service warns more outages could happen throughout the day today as winds will average 10 to 20 miles per hour and gust at 20 to 30 miles per hour.