Ameren crews from Missouri, Illinois deploy to Louisiana for hurricane relief

In his 34 years in the utility business, Cape Girardeau native Russ Burger has witnessed his fair share of natural disasters. Burger, director of the Southeast Missouri Division for Ameren Missouri, has assisted with power restorations in Puerto Rico, Florida and Mississippi.

Now, Burger, along with more than 300 personnel from Ameren Missouri and Illinois, will travel to Louisiana to help restore power to communities pummeled by Hurricane Ida.

Ameren Missouri crews departed early this morning for a two-week deployment from Drury Plaza Hotel in Cape Girardeau.

They'll fix fallen power poles, replace broken transformers and restring power lines.

"[The damage] is catastrophic," Burger said. "Our hearts go out to the people down there."

Crews anticipate working up to 18 hours a day in flooded or destroyed areas, according to Burger. They'll also have to worry about their own health and take measures to prevent COVID-19 spread.

"We could be staying in tents or gymnasiums with cots," Burger said. "Hopefully, we can find some hotel rooms, but I've been on [deployments] before where I slept in my truck overnight."

Personnel including lineworkers and contractors will assist crews from Entergy, an energy company based out of New Orleans.

A representative of Entergy said in a release Monday that Hurricane Ida left nearly 895,000 people without power. Eight high-voltage lines were damaged. One transmission tower's conductor and wires landed in the Mississippi River.

The damage was too much for the company to fix alone, so it sent a request for help through a mutual assistance network of electrical providers. Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois are voluntary members of a mutual assistance network in the electric power industry.

Crews from the network once came from across the country to assist Southeast Missouri in 2009.

"We had a catastrophic ice event where 5,000 poles got broken," Burger said. "I think 4,500 resources around the country came here to help us."

Burger said Ameren assesses what resources are needed locally to keep delivering power to customers before crews are deployed elsewhere. The company then sends any additional resources to other utility companies where they need help.

The crew's deployment is expected to last two weeks, but other crews may deploy depending on Louisiana's need, Burger said. Crews could rotate deployments for up to a month.