Storms cause power to flicker, strains businesses

Thousands spent time without power as storms rolled through mid-Missouri Sunday.

Residents in Hallsville and Centralia said they spent two hours without electricity and local business owners said it posed some challenges.

“People are frustrated because the game is out, they’re trying to catch that, and then also our food is getting cold and the alcohol is getting warm,” described Patsy Wadlow of the afternoon working at Bad Citizen Bar in Hallsville.

Outages affected Hallsville, as well as Centralia and Columbia.

At its peak, Ameren Missouri reported more than 3,000 power outages Sunday afternoon.

“We had nothing here, it was just straight rain,” Wadlow said. “There was no thunder, there was no lightning, nothing. And it just went out.”

Residents also said the outages caused traffic problem because stoplights were affected by the power outage.

Power outages didn’t just affect northern Boone County. Co-Mo Electric Co-Op had more than 200 outages. Boone Electric reported more than 150 outages.