Jefferson City leaders and power companies discussing safety during power outages
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Leaders in Jefferson City and Cole County have requested a meeting with the electric providers in the area to go over preparedness for a major disaster.
Mayor Carrie Tergin said she wanted the Cole County Emergency Management Office and power companies to sit down together to go over what the public should know if something were to happen.
"Throughout the last couple of years we here in Jefferson City have been faced with a lot of those natural disasters and challenges," Tergin said. "We are prepared for them."
Tergin said seeing the disaster that happened in Texas in February, with several people without heat and food for days, sparked her decision to call the meeting. She said the meeting tentatively planned for next Tuesday.
After the EF-3 rated tornado that ripped through the city in May of 2019, she said preparedness and communication have been key.
"It's important that we stay on top of it and make sure we have the preparedness level if anything were to happen, whether it be a rainstorm or whatever it may be, we know who to talk with," Tergin said. "That's why I'm glad we are able to practice these things, that's why we talk to our power companies to know what to do if we have any prolonged power outages."
While part of the meeting will help to coordinate a larger scale response and go over plans, a lot of the meeting will revolve around getting the public prepared for major disasters.
"If they are home and they don't have water or they don't have power or those kinds of things that can happen during storms, and if it's for a prolonged period how would we all handle that," Tergin said. "Not just from a public component, but residents and businesses and how they would handle those kinds of events.
The Division Director of central Missouri for Ameren Chip Webb said these conversations between local leaders and other companies is critical during major events.
"I think back to the tornado in 2019, there was a lot of coordinated efforts between Ameren, police, fire and other groups to do a lot of different things in the course of the response to that tornado," Webb said.
He said Ameren has robust plans in place to get power back on in major events, including collaboration with other utility companies in the area. He said events like the Texas power outages and the Jefferson City tornado are examples of why working together is important.
Those are major impactful events that affected a lot of people, and the real key is good collaboration between city, state, counties, utilities, everyone that is involved in that to make sure we are all working together," Webb said.
Watch ABC17 News at 9 and 10 for the full report.
