Tens of thousands may be powerless for days

Tens of thousands of people could be without power for days following a 24-hour winter storm that walloped Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois with sleet, freezing rain and snow.

Utility crews are having trouble keeping pace as tree limbs continue to fall. The number of outages reported in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding areas increased during the day Tuesday.

At the peak, more than 40,000 utility customers in a six-county area that included Cape Girardeau, Bolllinger, Scott and Perry counties in Missouri and Union and Alexander counties in Illinois were left in the dark. The numbers could go higher as forecasters predicted that winds would pick up overnight Tuesday.

Warming centers were opened in every county, some in multiple locations, and many emergency workers anticipated spending the night with storm refugees.

About 11,440 AmerenUE customers in Cape Girardeau County didn't have power as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, the highest number during the day, with utility officials predicting that most of those people wouldn't have their power restored until at least Wednesday night. The situation was more severe in rural areas, where electric cooperatives across the region reported additional tens of thousands of customers without power and, in some cases, said it may be three days or longer before all power is restored.

Lines started going down in bunches late Monday evening and crews worked throughout night to restore power. Daylight brought no relief as falling temperatures, more freezing rain and winds toppled limbs and at times forced crews to return to lines again and again for repairs.

"Ice is more of a problem than snow because it sticks to tree limbs. It just lingers and continues to be a problem. We get one thing fixed, and then new problems keep coming," said Mike Cleary, a spokesman for AmerenUE.

In Cape Girardeau, about 6,400 people didn't have power as of 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, but the number steadily climbed throughout the day. By 5 p.m. the number had grown to 9,625 in the 63701 and 63703 ZIP codes.

Jean Mason, AmerenUE's SEMO division manager, said she hoped "a considerable number" of people would have power back by this morning, but warned "this is not a one-day event." She said crews work on areas where the biggest number of people are affected first, such as subdivisions, then move to more outlying areas.

In the Jackson area, about 1,118 AmerenUE customers and 3,500 Jackson municipal power customers were without electricity Tuesday night. Chuck Reed, electric operations manager for Jackson, said the city hoped 75 to 80 percent of customers would have power restored by Wednesday night. Half of the 10 circuits were down at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Jackson was one of the few places where the effort to restore power overcame nature's effort to break the lines again.

A complication, Mason said, is that many lines are in people's backyards, not accessible by the company's trucks, and crews have to climb "poles covered with ice."

Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudston said at a news conference that people "don't care why they're out of power right now, they just want it back. The reality is they won't have it back right away."

Outside help

Nearly all the electrical companies sought outside help. AmerenUE brought in about 450 linemen and tree trimmers from around Park Hills, Mo., and Saint Louis to help crews restore power. Two disaster trailers were deployed, one to the Osage Community Centre and the other to Cape First Assembly of God Church, with supplies for crews. A mobile command post, with equipment to help coordinate efforts, is also parked at the Osage Community Centre.

In the Southern Illinois counties of Union and Alexander, all of the approximately 5,000 customers of the Southern Illinois Electric Cooperative lost power when a major transmission line feeding the region fell to the storm.

In addition to the cooperative's outages, approximately 2,100 of the 3,500 AmerenCIPS customers in Anna-Jonesboro were out of power at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

For customers in Missouri, the story was near the same. Among customers of the Black River Electric Cooperative in Western Cape Girardeau, central and northern Bollinger counties and counties to the west, more than 11,000 electric power users were without power at the peak.

For the SEMO Electric Cooperative, which serves most of Scott County and has customers in rural Cape Girardeau County south of Jackson, more than a third of the 15,000 total customers were without power at the peak.

lbavolek@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123