UE TO DISRUPT SCOTT CITY SERVICE FOR IMPROVEMENTS

SCOTT CITY -- Some Scott City residents might be in the dark for a while today and Saturday.

Union Electric Co. both days is interrupting electrical service in three areas of Scott City to upgrade its service. More than 250 customers in Scott City will be without power temporarily.

Homes between Daugherty and Mulberry streets will not have electricity from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and homes between Daugherty and Interstate 55 will be without service from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. today. On Saturday, the area west of I-55 will be without service from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The interruption not only will give UE crews a chance to upgrade the system but make it more reliable, said Dave Gohring, customer-service supervisor with UE.

Most of the work today will be completed within an hour or two, he said. On Saturday about 190 customers could be without electricity for as long as four hours.

Most businesses and homes were warned about the interruptions.

"We made a list of customers and will contact everybody we can get to," Gohring said. "It's more sensitive than it used to be," he said. "This should help the situation some."

Twelve UE employees will shut off voltage to transformers and upgrade service. Most of the transformers will now accept 12,000 volts on a primary line instead of the current 4,160 volts.

Changing the voltage is somewhat unusual, Gohring said. He said 12,000-volt transformers are now an industry standard.

City Clerk Nona Walls doesn't expect any power outage at City Hall. Employees were told Thursday that one of the lift stations will be out of service Friday.

Supervalu, one of the city's largest employers, will not be affected by the outage this morning since the company will run on electricity from its own transformer.