Power remains out for many in the western parts of the metro area, especially west St. Louis county and St. Charles county.

Slept at my office last night. The power stayed on here, and it wasn't too bad. Felt sort of like being back in a military barracks, where everybody kind of had their own rooms, but you had to walk down the hall to go to the bathroom. I couldn't find anyone to play "Settlers of Catan", but we watched a movie and played some Skip-Bo.

The weather here is better than expected today. The "freezing line" that was approaching from Oklahoma, stalled about 5 miles west of the city. So everyone west of the line (around Troy, Missouri) froze last night. Those to the east, stayed above freezing. It was pouring rain for much of the night, which had the advantage of washing the ice off the trees -- they have sprung back up into "normal" shapes (minus a few branches). If the freezing line had been just a few miles east, things would be really bad right now. But as it is, the worst of the ice storms appear to be over, and now we just have to deal with plummeting temperatures -- expectations are that'll it drop another 30 degrees today, to "Arctic" levels.

One funny story about the sudden melting: Yesterday, one of my neighbors had put up a new birdfeeder on one of the iced-over trees, so that the birds would have something to eat. But then when the trees thawed, the branches raised up so much, that the feeder is now high in the tree, and my neighbor can't reach it anymore! So next time I see a birdfeeder way way way up in a tree, I'm going to wonder if it got placed while that tree was in an icier state. :)

As regards electricity: Power has been restored to a few homes, but about 80,000 are still without power, and the area is still under a state of emergency. The National Guard has been going from house to house, checking on people. Power in my own apartment appears to have been restored last night, but many other of my co-workers were not as lucky, and will again be sleeping in the office tonight (yes I've offered crash-space and access to hot showers).

Power outages by zip code:

Area Outages: 80,670


# of Customers
ZIP Out Served
62002 8 17618
62012 30 1701
62016 1 1476
62024 1 5420
62035 23 7443
62052 2 4849
62054 1 240
62092 1 1315
62206 4 7600
62220 1 10100
62226 1 14017
62254 6 2748
62288 1 1404
63005 1806 7995
63010 3 15698
63011 5099 16253
63012 2 4009
63014 43 259
63015 226 956
63016 3 3580
63017 3660 18872
63020 2 9708
63021 3705 23351
63023 6 2356
63025 492 5944
63026 131 19678
63031 405 21022
63033 162 19708
63034 75 7381
63037 589 1185
63038 889 2714
63039 63 552
63040 388 3366
63042 658 10771
63043 1762 11752
63044 1859 6027
63049 498 7174
63050 22 7028
63051 277 6276
63052 2 10480
63055 800 1196
63056 80 125
63060 38 640
63066 1 81
63068 629 2440
63069 483 6969
63071 89 527
63072 192 1554
63073 21 398
63074 3302 8281
63077 418 5720
63084 615 8172
63087 2 680
63088 37 4397
63089 193 2806
63090 642 10568
63091 115 478
63103 2 4491
63104 11 12063
63105 8 8488
63107 1 6599
63109 2 15992
63114 4648 18539
63115 1 11723
63118 39 15621
63119 473 16475
63121 295 12805
63122 1550 8900
63123 427 25064
63124 683 5096
63126 2 7719
63127 5 2410
63128 5 13576
63129 3 23386
63130 291 15373
63131 3100 7655
63132 2025 8653
63133 630 4245
63134 1530 6823
63135 350 9691
63136 161 22932
63137 29 9048
63138 59 9610
63139 1 13965
63140 5 303
63141 3616 10644
63144 29 5784
63145 2 28
63146 6881 16318
63147 8 6053
63301 7491 24669
63303 5783 17941
63304 1219 8345
63330 1 99
63332 29 499
63334 41 2804
63336 181 973
63341 24 355
63343 2 1585
63344 5 506
63346 3 33
63347 75 271
63348 31 803
63350 1 268
63351 50 633
63353 1 2879
63357 68 1379
63362 4 925
63365 7 142
63366 2930 29087
63367 49 49
63369 6 504
63373 536 704
63376 687 27511
63377 2 689
63379 5 6297
63383 144 5484
63385 647 8595
63386 553 618
63387 2 84
63389 12 548
63390 5 2035
63640 1 4404
65001 110 113
65013 514 1226
65014 121 599
65016 146 146
65024 4 325
65035 301 375
65041 1 404
65051 389 1069
65054 176 176
65062 146 146
65066 309 536
65582 422 430

I haven't been home yet to check on damage or food spoilage.

Lastly, one good thing about sleeping at the office, is that it makes for a short commute in the morning!

FYI,

Elonka :)

St. Charles storm update - Monday