Another St. Louis Power Outage
Due To Another Bad Storm, Of Course
Last summer in the month of July I blogged about a bad storm that rolled into Missouri leaving over 700,000 Missourians without power on a site called TagWorld. It was the worst storm in St. Louis history and some people were without power for up to a week at the least. Well, we just had our first Winter storm of the season and it was devastating. It rolled in last Thursday,Dec.lst, leaving over 500,000 Missourians without power and some still are to the tune of about 68,000 people. This was due to ice forming on power lines and trees causing power lines to snap on their own or after limbs or whole trees fell on them. Trees also fell on many homes as well. The clean up of damaged trees will not be over till at least Spring of next year. Oy! God help us if another bad storm hits behind this one. It might send us back into the Stone Age.
My power went out last Friday morning and was restored sometime Tuesday. My brother and I stayed with my parents until today. Thank goodness we had a place to go and did not have to stay in a hotel or in a shelter like so many others did and some still are. It does not appear that we lost any food due to this storm occuring while it is cold. We lost food during the Summer storm though, of course. We stayed with our parents then too. The area they live in, North St. Louis City, is definitely better in terms of handling storms. North St. Louis County, where we live, is nicer in terms of crime but seriously sucks in terms of being able to handle storms. We lose power just about everytime any storm of any magnitude hits St. Louis.
Our governor is once again calling for an investigation of our power company in order to determine if it is doing enough to deal with dangerous trees that threaten power lines all over the state and whether or not it responds adequately to power failures. Our power company is Ameren UE. Somehow, I get the feeling that somebody is just not doing their job because we did not used to experience power failures every single time a storm rolled into St. Louis. The situation is ridiculous and something definitely needs to be done on a state and/or federal level.
Right now it is being recommended that Ameren UE put more electrical wires underground but that is an expensive proposition and not likely to be done because it would raise everyone's electric bill. It is also being recommended that Ameren UE fight for the right or be given the right to cut dangerous trees even on private property. This too would probably require a rate increase on Ameren UE's part in order to pay for the cutting of more trees but it might have a chance of being enacted. Regardless, I hope something is done because the situation as it currently stands is unnacceptable. Take care.
