More than 1,000 without power in Boone County, thousands without power in Mid-Missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Thousands of people are already without power Friday afternoon as high winds speed through Mid-Missouri, and that number is continuing to climb.

Severe weather is expected to roll through Mid-Missouri Friday afternoon and early evening, prompting the ABC 17 News Stormtrack Weather Team to declare today as a Weather Alert Day.

Electric Cooperatives

Boone Electric is seeing more than 800 of its customers without power at 4:15 p.m., according to its outage map. The outages appear to have occurred south of the Thornbrook area. Columbia is seeing nearly 100 people without power.

Bention County is seeing a sizable outage at 1,058 electric customers.

There were 330 Miller County electric customers were without power, according to the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives outage map at 3:35 p.m. Of those, 309 were Three Rivers Electric customers, with the rest coming from Gascosage Electric.

A spokesperson from Three Rivers said its outage was caused by the wind and that a grass fire was started from downed line in the St. Elizabeth area. The spokesperson believed that outage will be fixed by 3:45 p.m.

Another sizeable outage is going on in Morgan County, with 843 Co-Mo Electric customers without power earlier in the afternoon. That number was down to 617 by 4:!5 p.m. There are 470 Laclede Electric customers without power in Laclede County, the map shows.

Camden County is seeing 477 outages at 4:15 p.m., which is down from 577 earlier in the afternoon.

Emergency services in Morgan County wrote on its Facebook page that almost every one of its agencies were fighting multiple fires.

The following counties are experiencing a number of outages, according to the AMEC map:

• Boone County: 828 Boone Electric customers
• Benton County: 1,058 (1,056 Southwest Electric, 2 Co-Mo Electric)
• Howard County: 210 Howard Electric customers
• Montieau County: 27 Co-Mo Electric Cooperative customers
• Morgan County: 617 Co-Mo Electric Cooperative customers
• Camden: 477 (369 Laclede Electric customers, 104 Southwest Electric, 4 Co-Mo Electric)
• Maries County: 73 Gascosage Electric customers
• Monroe County: 29 Missouri Rural Electric customers
• Osage County: 20 Three Rivers Electric customers
• Pulaski County: 199 (140 Laclede Electric, 59 Gascosage Electric)
• Lacelede County: 228 Laclede Electric

Ameren

Ameren’s outage map shows a significant number of outages in the eastern part of the state. Thousands are without power in St. Louis.

There are more than 400 Boone County Ameren customers without power, according to its outage map.

Its outage mage shows that 220 customers in Camden County are without power, while another 92 are experiencing outages in Morgan County. There are 62 and 31 customers without power in Miller and Callaway counties, respectively.

Columbia

In Columbia, three outages were impacting nearly 100 city utility customers, according to the city’s outage map.

An outage was reported on Bray Avenue in the neighborhood just south of Fairview Elementary School. That outage was reported at 3:41 p.m. and is impacting 73 utility customers.  

Another outage was reported on West Rollins Road, east of Stadium Boulevard, at 3:25 p.m. that is impacting 15 customers. A crew was assigned to that outage, as well. Another outage was reported at 3:23 p.m. near Douglass Park in Central Columbia, which is impacting nine customers.  

Boone County Office of Emergency Management at Level 3

The Boone County Office of Emergency Management wrote in a Friday afternoon press release that it is at a Level 3 activation ahead of the storms. OEM staff is actively monitoring conditions and are available to coordinate resources as requested.

Kehoe issues executive order declaring state of emergency

Gov. Mike Kehoe signed an executive order on Friday that declared a state of emergency in the state ahead of the storms.

““The National Weather Service has warned that this fast-approaching storm is likely to bring severe weather across the state, including high winds and an increased risk of tornadoes,” Kehoe said in the release. “I urge all Missourians to stay alert, monitor weather forecasts, and follow official warnings.”

The Missouri State Emergency Operations Plan — which enables state agencies to coordinate directly with local jurisdictions to provide assistance – has been activated by the order, the release says.

Check back for updates to this developing story.