City of Columbia Missouri

P.O. BOX 6015
COLUMBIA, MO 65205

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 12, 2019

CONTACT: Steven Sapp
Community Relations Director
City of Columbia
573.874.7257
[email protected]

Lissie Wade
Community Relations Specialist
Community Relations/Water & Light
City of Columbia
573.817.6498
[email protected]

City of Columbia Utilities seeking mutual aid on Jan. 12 for winter storm event

(COLUMBIA, MO) -

Due to approximately 7,000 City of Columbia Utilities customers that are currently without power, caused by trees and limbs sagging on power lines from the heavy snow, the City is requesting mutual aid and seeking a declaration of emergency in accordance with Chapter 19.95 (a) from the City Ordinance.

The Ordinance states that a declaration of emergency is whenever the city manager requests the emergency assistance of others under a mutual aid agreement or authorizes city employees to provide emergency assistance to others under a mutual aid agreement.

Columbia Water & Light officials requested mutual aid at 8:37 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 12 and Interim City Manager John Glascock approved and made the official request with the Missouri Public Utility Alliance (MPUA) at 8:40 a.m.  A request for mutual aid means that Columbia has requested mutual assistance from other electric utilities to help in restoring power to the increasing number of customer outages throughout the city of Columbia. Currently, crews from Macon, Palmyra and Rolla are responding to our request. Contractors PAR Electrical and Asplundh are also helping in their areas of expertise.

The City of Columbia has been a participant in MPUA’s Mutual Aid program for many years and has both given and received aid during times of emergency.  Columbia last responded to a call for mutual aid in October 2018 to help restore power in areas damaged by hurricane Michael. The last time the City called for mutual aid was in July 2014 for damage caused by strong summer storms.

For updates on power outages, please visit http://outageviewer.gocolumbiamo.com.  To report an outage, please call 573.875.2555.



City of Columbia Vision
Columbia is the best place for everyone to live, work, learn and play.

City of Columbia Mission
To serve the public equitably through democratic, transparent and efficient government.

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