Thousands were without power across Missouri as high winds whipped across the state Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Ameren reported that 17,871 customers were without service Wednesday morning, mostly in the St. Louis area. Dozens of customers in Jefferson City also suffered outages, but all but 34 of them had been restored by 8:30 a.m., according to the utility's outage map.
Scattered outages were reported overnight by rural electric cooperatives in Mid-Missouri. Among them, Three Rivers Electric Cooperative reported almost 400 customers were affected, many of them in an area along the border of Osage and Gasconade counties. Boone Electric Cooperative reported 366 of its customers were without power at the peak of the outage from 3-4 a.m.
The National Weather Service has issued high wind warnings and advisories for almost the entire state. Forecasters predicted gusts of up to 60 mph and warned that travel would be difficult, especially for high-profile vehicles.
Utility outage reports:
Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives (statewide coop updates)
Three Rivers Electric Cooperative
Three Rivers Electric on Facebook