CU restores power to 62,700 customers

The brief winter storm that blew through the Ozarks on Saturday dropped another quarter inch of ice onto trees and power lines, according to CU spokesman Joel Alexander, but he said the weather failed to delay the utility’s workers.

“We were hampered a little bit,” Alexander said. “It did drop us back on numbers just a little bit – we did lose a few feeders – but the crews worked through it and brought us back, and had us at an even number for that day.”

CU has nearly 1,200 workers, including its own crews and contract workers, out this week restoring power to customers still in the dark, which at one point numbered 75,000 of CU’s 106,000 customers. More out-of-town crews are expected to arrive this week.

As of Sunday, Joplin-based Empire District Electric Co. had reduced its customers without power to about 8,000, compared to 85,000 at its peak.

Empire serves approximately 162,000 electric customers in southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas, northeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas.