ST. LOUIS — The largest electric utility company in the state of Missouri is ready for this incoming weather.
Ameren crews are preparing to tackle the job on both sides of the river.
Wednesday afternoon, Ameren Missouri's Director of Distribution Operations Lucas Klein was in the emergency operation center.
"Where we are right now is our operation center for the grid. Number one, they monitor the grid, watch for alarms, respond to issues or outages as they occur," Klein said. "If we end up in an event where there are many outages, then we staff up even more in this emergency operation center and consolidate and centralize our response."
In less than 24 hours, busy bees will be swarming this area at Ameren's headquarters in St. Louis.
They will make sure the 1.2 million customers throughout the state are not left in the dark.
"We’re not seeing any staffing issues," Klein said.
He said they have beefed up staff ahead of the storm. Primarily for workers behind the scenes and crews out in the elements.
"More staff to monitor and operate the grid. We increased our staffing levels to allow folks, our field folks, to rotate in and out in order for warming," he also said.
That's because operators in the field fixing outages will face windy and frigid conditions.
"That could cause some tree limbs to come down, knock trees over. That’s the number one concern for us. Blowing snow will reduce visibility, those are tough outdoor working conditions. That will impact our ability to get to the outages because of the slippery conditions but also working in those elements things take longer. You can’t see as well...moving things around you have to take more time to do it safely," he said.
To be safe, Ameren crews work ahead, not knowing what Mother Nature will leave behind.
"Number one, we are concluding our discretionary work so we can bring the grid back to a complete state, so it's most stable and ready for this weather. We're taking precautions at our facilities, so our equipment is in good working condition and ready for the cold," Klein said.
He suggested if you see downed power lines, call and report it and always assume it's energized.
If you can, then make sure your contact information is up to date and accurate that way they can reach out to you if you have an outage.
Klein said they forecast being in this state of readiness until midday Saturday.
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