ST. LOUIS — Countless rounds of severe storms have hit the St. Louis area in 2024.
The potential for more hail, strong winds and even tornadoes during the remainder of the year worries the thousands of people who faced power outages from previous storms.
Ameren Missouri and Illinois previously told 5 On Your Side dozens of dispatchers use smart devices located in people's homes and businesses to monitor power outages as future storms roll in.
Outage data that Ameren compiles is available to everyone through the company outage map. Track the latest power outage updates on the map below:
The Ameren Missouri dispatch office in St. Louis holds its Emergency Operating Center (EOC) where dispatchers directly communicate with crews sending them to outages. It's just one of three Ameren dispatch office locations in our area with all hands on deck for today's severe weather.
When an outage occurs, Ameren said it takes an average of 3 hours to turn the power back on.
"What we're trying to do is understand where those outages may be," said Ben Lynch, director of Distribution operations at Ameren Missouri.
"We're looking to repair those outages as quickly as possible. We also are consistently looking through areas that may have had a historical, maybe multiple outages over the previous year, we're definitely looking to drive future projects so we can remedy those issues before they become a problem again, for our customers."
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