RESIDENTS ASSESS DAMAGES OF STORM; UE RESTORES POWER

Area residents took assessments at first light Friday morning after the storm the previous night downed trees and power lines causing extensive damage and major inconvenience.

Union Electric still had crews working late Friday night restoring power to almost 2,500 customers in Southeast Missouri.

Doug Groesbeck of UE said crews from the Wentzville and Ironton areas were sent to Cape Girardeau to help with the restoration. Between 4 and 8 a.m. Friday another 2,600 customers called to report power outages. UE reported some 8,500 customers without power Thursday night.

"My hat is off to the city," Groesbeck said. "A lot of our work south of the Cape had to be done by boats and the city coordinated Coast Guard boats for us to use."

He anticipated electricity to be restored to all customers early this morning.

Residents concerned about frozen and refrigerated foods spoiling were invited to use Schnuck's freezers to store some items. An official from Schnuck's wasn't available Friday evening to say how many people took advantage of the offer.

Besides the residential inconvenience, many restaurants and other businesses were without power for much of Friday.

China Palace, 1731 Broadway, had electricity for cooking but didn't have the power to operate the air-conditioning system during peak dining hours. The dining room thermostat indicated 81 degrees.

Businesses on Nash Road and the nearby airport also had electricity sporadically throughout the day. The Cape Girardeau Regional Airport closed Thursday evening and couldn't reopen until the sun rose Friday.

"We went about 17 hours without power," Airport Manager Greg Chenoweth said. "Most of our navigational systems aren't operational when the power is off. But it only affected two commercial flights."

A TWE flight arriving Thursday night and a flight scheduled to depart Friday morning were canceled. Chenoweth said busing arrangements were made by the airline.

The airport has a backup generator for some electric outlets -- the FAA offices and control tower -- but much of the terminal was blacked out when the storm hit after 6 p.m.

Chenoweth said the electricity came back on about 11 a.m. Friday but was sporadic throughout the afternoon. Crews were having difficulty activating the air-conditioning system in the terminal because of the outage. And because the airport doesn't have city water or sewers, those services weren't available when the power was out either.

Brad Quinn with the airport's fixed-base operator, Air Evac, said a Cessna 152 was damaged Thursday night when a hangar door blew into the aircraft. The aircraft and another Cessna 152 damaged in a storm a couple of weeks ago prompted Air Evac to fly an extra rental aircraft Friday from the company's West Plains headquarters to fill the void.

"The insurance inspector was just here yesterday to look at the first aircraft," Quinn said. "He'll have to come back now."

He said with the morning power outage, several pilots were delayed because the large doors in the main hangar are operated electrically.

"We had 12 planes in the hangar to keep them out of the storm," Quinn said. "So we went to rent a backup generator this morning to open the doors, but by the time we got back the power was on."

Kevin McMeel with Cape Girardeau's Department of Public Works said travel around the city was met with little inconvenience Friday. Crews put in many hours clearing trees and limbs out of the roadways.

"The storm was wide spread," he said. "I don't think there was one area not affected by this."