By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis –
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A line of thunderstorms knocked out power to thousands of people in St. Louis early Monday.
Weather officials reported wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour.
A woman from the suburb of St. John is in critical condition after she was hit by a falling tree limb.
At the height of the outage, around 60,000 customers in the St. Louis area were without electricity. Workers restored about half of those customers as of 8 a.m. Monday.
Ameren spokeswoman Susan Gallagher said the areas affected are similar to those blacked out during storms last year.
"Essentially it's the north county area - Berkeley, Florissant, St. Charles, Maryland Heights," Gallagher said. "Those are the areas hardest hit. There are pockets, though throughout the city, University City and some parts of Clayton."
Ameren has begun an aggressive tree-trimming program, and plans to bury some of its lines. Gallagher said crews will put some power lines underground in Florissant starting in the fall.
Many school districts in the St. Louis area were scheduled to begin the new school year Monday.
However students in the Hazelwood district got an extra day of summer vacation because of the power outage.
The Ferguson-Florissant district will begin classes as normal.