Power

[MTM]

I see this morning on the news they are going to get an investagation going on why the Power still isn't on in Missouri and Illinois. You know how much that is going to cost the tax payers. A bunch.

I can tell them why but they don't want to hear the truth they have to find something worng some place. The reason is the weather. The ice is still on a lot of the trees and the limbs are still breaking. They fix one area and leave and have to go back and fix it again. A week to fix what was out is one heck of a good time if you ask me. that ice was all over most of two states. How many people do you think they have to work on something like that.

It just amazes me what the government will do. Ron

[Terry Beeson]

Ron,

On Christmas morning 2000, I sat in my sister's house watching the news and weather trying to decide if my wife and I should head back to Texarkana, AR before the weather got too bad. Well, the 3 hour trip was postponed for four days when my wife got a call from the store she managed. The only clerk on duty told her to stay put since there were NO VEHICLES moving at all on I-30 or US71 (the store was at the interchange) and he was stuck there, so not to worry about the C-store.

Officially, there was from 1/4 to 1 inch of ice. Realistically, there was more like 2-4 inches. We finally did get back - sliding the last few miles - four days later with no power. Luckily, we had gas water heater and oven, so we could keep the house relatively warm and have a hot shower.

My neighbor told me that Christmas night, he and another neighbor stood in the middle of the street most of the night. The couldn't sleep for all the noise. And they were afraid to stay in the house for fear of a tree hitting the roof. He said that every 30 seconds or so, you would hear a loud crack then a huge BOOM. He indicated he had been in Vietnam and the shelling over there wasn't as loud as this. Trees and HUGE limbs were falling everywhere.

That ice storm left many without power for one week to TWO MONTHS. Every tree - not almost... EVERY tree - from around Hope to Fauk to Hooks to Ashdown and beyond was topped due to the amount of ice. NObody in TXK and surrounding places had power. Crews worked day and night with many coming from as far as Florida to help out. But there were so many lines down and so many trees. Asplund must have had 100 or more crews working on the tree situation. Dumping centers were set up for people to bring debris from fallen trees. The piles were MASSIVE to say the least.

I watched three line crews working on my block for some 72 hours trying to get power restored to the neighborhood. A week after we got back, we had power again. At that point, they were about 20 percent restored.

With all that said, this recent storm in Missouri pales in comparison. But I know there was a great deal of damage. My thinking is that they simply did not bring in enough crews to make quick work of it. The Texarkana storm brought in huge convoys of power line and tree trimming crews from all over and still took "too long" in some folks opinion. I think they did a good job with what they had to work with.

I think Missouri underestimated how bad it was here.

[WebFreeman]

I think Ameren UE is overmatched. I have a friend in Eureka that was w/o power for 5 days w/ this storm and I think 5 days earlier this fall when they had some big storms (which I think they later said were tornados.) It seems to be one thing after another with them. There was something at Bagnell Dam (I think) with a big fish kill a few years ago and then the Taumsauk disaster and now this in St. Louis. I wonder how they've stayed in business.

[Danoinark]

This is how you solve this problem. You go out and pay high dollar for a kerosene heater and high dollar k-1 gas. I haven't had a winter time power failure since 2000.

Dano