Storms cause outages across Missouri

Electric cooperative employees suffered through a tough night Monday and into Tuesday as a long line of powerful storms rolled across Missouri causing widespread damage to power lines. At the peak of the storm, approximately 25,000 members were without power.
 
The damage began near Kansas City in the areas served by Platte-Clay Electric Cooperative, Kearney, and West Central Electric Cooperative, Higginsville. Tornadoes were reported in Oak Grove and Platte City. Outages peaked at around 2,500 each for these two cooperatives.
 
As the storm advanced across Missouri, outages popped up all along the storm front, ranging from 4,000 at Southwest Electric Cooperative, Bolivar, to around 850 at Macon Electric Cooperative, Macon. Damage occurred as far south as Shannon County, where Howell-Oregon saw around 500 members lose power briefly, and into northeast Missouri where Missouri Rural Electric Cooperative, Palmyra, saw 850 outages and Lewis County Rural Electric Cooperative, Lewistown, had 150 outages..
 
But as soon as the storm passed through, crews headed into the darkness to assess the damage and make repairs. By 8 a.m. less than 4,000 remained without power statewide. The highest concentration of damage remaining was in Morgan County, which is served by Co-Mo Electric Cooperative. Outages there totaled 1,848 at daybreak, down from 5,500 at midnight. That number was quickly cut in half as fresh crews entered the all-out effort.
 
Elsewhere, Barton County Electric Cooperative, Lamar, had 389 repairs to make Tuesday morning while West Central Electric Cooperative had 392 members left without power. Farmers’ Electric Cooperative, Chillicothe, had around 264 members out, Crawford Electric Cooperative, Bourbon, had 179 without power and Platte-Clay was mopping up its last hundred.
 
Those systems suffering less problems sent crews to assist those with more intense damage. Both Platte-Clay Electric and Macon Electric received assistance.
 
There was also damage to structures and wire owned by NW Electric Power Cooperative, Cameron, a transmission system that serves electric cooperatives in northwest Missouri.
 
Electric cooperative crews will work until every member has power once again. Missouri’s electric cooperatives caution the public to avoid downed power lines.