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Utility Crews Battle Wind, Cold, New Outages
posted 6:30 a-m, 12/21/8 Utility crews are being met with strong winds, which is hampering their efforts to get power restored to those who've been without it since an ice storm moved through the area Thursday night and into Friday morning.

On top of that, some new outages are reported. Ameren IP says crews are dealing with more than 20,000 power outages in Illinois, many of them in the Peoria area, on this first day of Winter. Ameren IP reports several outages in the Monmouth area. There were 180 in Monmouth, nearly 150 in Cameron and scattered outages in nearby communities as of 6 a-m (Sunday).

The Spoon River Electric Cooperative has also had some setbacks thanks to the gusting winds that creating near white-out conditions on area roads Saturday night and took down power lines still coated with ice. Bill Dodds with the co-op says lines have been falling as fast as crews can put them up. Officials fear the weather conditions over the next 36 hours will present major problems.

Those conditions are wind gusts that could reach 35 miles per hour combined with bitterly cold temperatures. The National Weather Service has issued a Wind Chill Warning until 9:00 Monday morning.

The cold can result in frostbite and hypothermia very quickly if the necessary precautions aren't taken before going outside. Wind chill readings could drop to a low as 30 below zero tonight and minus 24 during the day on Monday.
12 20 08 by Newsroom
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