By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – In the St. Louis region about 260,000 homes have no power and they may not get back on-line for several days.
Ameren has 1,600 line workers on the job and the utility is bringing in crews from as far away as Canadian border and the Gulf of Mexico. But spokesman Tim Fox says an ice storm is the worst thing happen to electric distribution system.
He says the next 24 to 48 hours will likely be a period of assessment, "We don't think that we'll start to see meaningful numbers of customers starting to get their power back, restored for the next four or five days, and possibly longer, so this is a big event for us, and a very serious event for our customers."
RELATED NEWS:
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has called out the National Guard to help victims of the storm. Spokesman Brian Hauswirth says 25 to 30 National Guard members were sent to St. Louis city and county and Washington County today. An additional 200 will be sent to the St. Louis area by tomorrow(Saturday) morning. Fifty to 60 Guard members were headed to Festus, Farmington and DeSoto. And 500 other Guard members were available to be deployed around the state if needed. Blunt has declared a state of emergency and placed the National Guard on standby to be sent anywhere in Missouri to help in storm recovery efforts.
At Lambert Airport, fifty-percent of flights have been cancelled today. All carriers have been affected. Flights are taking off and landing but there are still delays. Airport officials say they expect things to be back to normal tomorrow (Saturday).
At least two weather-related traffic deaths have been reported in the state. And an 87-year old Affton woman died early this morning when a downed power line caused a short that sparked a fire in her home.
Two of the three health clinics that St. Louis County operates are open today, but the North Central Community Health Center in Pine Lawn is not, because of the power outage.
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