Over 25,000 meters left without power under Ozark electric cooperative

With one area weather station reporting wind gusts in excess of 70 miles per hour, the remains of Hurricane Ike left more than 25,000 Ozark Border Electric Cooperative customers without power for portions of Sunday.

"This is the worst storm we've ever had," said Ozark Border Manager Stan Estes. Ozark Boarder serves Butler, Ripley and Carter counties, as well as south Wayne County, west Stoddard County and north Dunklin County. "Probably 75 percent of our 37,000 customers were out of power. I've been here 30 years and I've never seen high numbers like this."

As of 8:30 a.m. today, 1,500 Ozark Border customers were still without power. By nightfall, Estes hoped to see that number reduced to 500 to 300 residents. He believes service will be restored to the majority of customers by the end of the day Tuesday. Ozark Border is receiving help from three extra crews, totaling eight men, sent from Columbia and communities north of St. Louis and Jefferson City.

Black River Electric Company (BREC), which serves 10 counties, including Wayne, was reporting 6,000 customers without power as of 5 a.m. today. BREC expects crews from three Missouri cooperatives to arrive today. Repairs could take several days with as many as 50 broken power poles in the company's service area, according to the BREC's website.

Previously the worst storm Estes had seen was the Feb. 11 ice storm, but yesterday's winds caused a higher number of outages, he said.

"Also in [February], all of the problems were in certain areas. This has been all across our systems," Estes said. "We have 30 substations and every one was affected. We've had 14 lines to take calls, and haven't been able to keep up."

Ozark Border crews worked until midnight Sunday and returned at 5 a.m. today. They are likely to be out until midnight tonight.

"Our employees have been wonderful and we appreciate our customers' patience," Estes said.

The majority of Ozark Borders losses were caused by wind damaged trees falling and breaking both lines and poles, he said, with the worst winds occurring around 6:30 a.m.