POWER STILL NOT RESTORED TO EVERYONE

Power remained out for some AmerenUE customers Wednesday, two days after high winds whipped through Southeast Missouri.

The Monday afternoon storm left about 44,000 AmerenUE customers without power in Cape Girardeau and the surrounding area to as far south as Oran in Scott County.

By late Wednesday afternoon, nearly 3,000 customers were still without electricity, said AmerenUE district manager Doug Groesbeck. Many of those customers live in Cape Girardeau.

Groesbeck said about 1,500 of the customers were in the central part of the city where overhead power lines run through backyards.

"We are shooting for the bulk of the customers to have their power restored by Wednesday evening," he said.

Groesbeck said power might still be out for some customers today.

Some outages have occurred since the storm as damaged trees leaned on power lines.

"We just had a feeder outage earlier this morning that was probably delayed damage from the storm," he said.

Even after all the power is restored, crews will be busy for a couple of days making repairs, Groesbeck said.

The utility company also continued to work to restore natural gas service in the Route K and Mount Auburn Road area. A downed electrical line on Monday came in contact with a water main and a gas main. It burned a hole in both steel pipes, allowing water to get in the gas line.

AmerenUE had to shut off gas service to about 150 customers, many of them businesses. The affected businesses included restaurants that cook with gas.

Little by little, gas service was being restored to those businesses Wednesday, Groesbeck said.

Students were expected back in the classrooms at Nell Holcomb School today. The elementary school north of Cape Girardeau was without power for about 44 hours. Power was restored around 11:15 a.m. Wednesday.

"We moved all of our frozen food products and cold storage items," said superintendent David Fuemmeler. The food was being stored at Oak Ridge School.

"Our biggest problem without electricity is that our pump wouldn't work on our well," he said.

Fuemmeler said he expects the school to be in good shape today.

Nell Holcomb's school year had been slated to end Friday. But the power outage has changed the schedule. Classes will be held Monday and Tuesday of next week to make up for the days missed this week.

Ironically, the storm and power outages coincided with emergency preparedness work being done by about 20 soldiers from an Army engineering battalion out of Fort Bragg, N.C.

David Hitt, director of emergency preparedness for Cape Girardeau County, had requested that a study be done to determine the generators that would be needed to power emergency shelters in over 100 churches, schools and government buildings should there be a power outage from a disaster.

The soldiers also are looking at the generator needs for government facilities including sewage treatment plants.

The team from Company B of the 249th Engineer Battalion is looking at about 150 structures this week. The team began its work Monday and is expected to finish on Friday.

Hitt said the power outage hasn't stopped the soldiers from their task.

The study is being funded by the federal government. "It is not costing Cape Girardeau County a dime," said Hitt.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency stores emergency generators at sites around the country for use in case of disasters.

When power is needed for emergency shelters, members of the Army battalion are called in to set up the generators, Hitt said.