Five Missouri electric cooperatives that saw lines and poles crash to the ground in the wake of extreme wind and heavy rain Friday continue to pick up the pieces on Tuesday as power remains out to 11,100 electric co-op members statewide.
Black River Electric Cooperative, Citizens Electric Corporation and Intercounty Electric Cooperative each still have significant outages, while Southwest Electric Cooperative and Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative work to restore service to about 50 members each. Se-Ma-No Electric Cooperative, which reported storm-related outages yesterday, has completed power restoration efforts.
More than 70,000 members of 18 Missouri electric cooperatives lost power as a massive windstorm passed through southern Missouri May 8. Isolated tornados, as well as fierce winds topping 70 mph, combined with ground-saturating rain to topple trees and down power lines. Flash floods and muddy ground have hampered recovery efforts in many areas.
Fredericktown-based Black River Electric Cooperative was hardest hit, with 14,500 members without power in nine southeast Missouri counties.
As of Tuesday morning, Black River was working to restore power to 7,900 members still without service. More than 1,000 poles were broken along Black River’s lines as the result of Friday’s storm.
“We’ve got sections where we have 40 and 50 poles broken in a row,” says John Singleton, manager of marketing for the 24,000-member cooperative. “We’re seeing hundreds of trees completely uprooted. It’s pretty ugly.”
With assistance from an emergency assistance program coordinated by the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives, Black River Electric has mustered a workforce of approximately 560 in the recovery effort. That number includes 325 right-of-way contractors and 150 additional linemen.
At Ste. Genevieve-based Citizen’s Electric Corporation, nearly 100 additional linemen and right-of-way workers are on the job. Citizens saw about 10,000 customers without power on Friday and now is working to restore service to 1,900 residents, mostly in the Perryville and Altenburg areas.
As is the case throughout southern Missouri, most of the damage in Citizens’ service territory is attributed to fallen trees.
“We saw a lot of trees that were actually uprooted – some really big oak trees that look like the hand of God came down and pulled them out by the roots and tossed them into the road,” says Barb Casper, manager of member services for the 26,000-member system. Although Citizens is on track to have all power restored by Thursday morning, more severe weather forecasted for Wednesday threatens the effort.
Licking-based Intercounty Electric Cooperative also saw nearly 10,000 members without power following the May 8 storm. As of Tuesday morning, power is still out to 1,200 members there.
Restoration work is nearly complete at West Plains-based Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative and Bolivar-Based Southwest Electric Cooperative, which each report about 50 members without power Tuesday morning. Mansfield-based Se-Ma-No Electric Cooperative restored service to all members Monday evening.
During power outage emergencies, Missouri’s electric cooperatives reach out to other co-ops in unaffected areas for help. The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives has dispatched more than 230 cooperative linemen from Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky and Illinois to assist in recovery efforts, says AMEC’s Director of Risk Management and Training Rob Land.