Utility, local officials discuss storm preparation

Leaders from AmerenUE put on a presentation Friday at their Cape Girardeau headquarters to discuss storm preparation with community leaders.

Firefighters, police officers, emergency management directors and public officials tried to coordinate their response efforts with the utility company.

Jean Mason, AmerenUE's SEMO division manager, Karen Foss, vice president for public relations, and Tom Slinkard, electric superintendent, spoke about how power is restored after a storm strikes, what steps are taken to get the lights on quickly and what resources are available to speed up the restoration process.

After the brief program, the audience had a chance to ask questions. Mayor Jay Knudtson said it would be in the city's best interest to better establish communications with AmerenUE.

"We view this as a partnership," said Knudtson, adding that the city gets calls during power outages and officials want to know how to better answer questions aside from directing customers to Ameren's toll-free number, (800) 552-7583.

Ameren UE held a storm preparation meeting Friday with rescue personel and community leaders at its Cape Girardeau headaquarters. (Diane L. Wilson)

Slinkard said meters are read electronically and when power is out, a signal is sent to the database. Calls that would help Ameren are cases of emergency, such as when live wires are down.

Slinkard recommended customers check the Ameren Web site, www.ameren.com, for outage information listed by ZIP code.

Knudtson asked the AmerenUE representatives what was the biggest thing municipality could do to plan for future storms.

Mason said the company's biggest threat to power lines during storms are trees. She suggested that the city create an ordinance or work with developers so trees are planted away from power lines.

Joe Burton, director of emergency management in Scott City, said Ameren should let the local emergency management know where staging areas are for mobile command centers.

He said an agency working alone during a disaster is a thing of the past, and there is a lot more disaster planning going on today.

"[Hurricane] Katrina helped us learn this," Burton said.

After the meeting, the 30 community leaders who attended the meeting got a chance to look at the mobile command center and one of Ameren's eight material trailers, which contains about $100,000 in equipment. The purpose of the trailers is to move supplies closer to workers so they don't have to travel to the company's headquarters during an emergency.

tkrakowiak@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137