Outages Linger in St. Louis; Severe Storm Watch Posted

Some Ameren Missouri customers in Clayton and Richmond Heights were still experiencing power outages Tuesday afternoon . Meanwhile, the National Weather Service reported that a severe thunderstorm watch is in effect until 9 p.m. for St. Louis County.

Between 1 and 2 percent of customers in the 63105 ZIP code that includes Clayton were without power, an outage map on Ameren's website showed at 4:50 p.m. That represents approximately 85 to 170 customers.

Additionally about 4 percent of customers in the 63117 ZIP code that includes Richmond Heights were without power. That represents approximately 230 customers.

"More than a thousand workers are in the field to safely restore power to Ameren Missouri customers throughout the St. Louis Metro area," stated Richard Mark, senior vice president of Ameren Missouri customer operations, in an email to Kirkwood-Webster Groves Patch on Tuesday morning.  "We estimate that a majority of our customers will have power restored by late Tuesday night, despite approximately 50 broken utility poles and extensive equipment damage scattered across the region."

Storms capable of producing isolated tornadoes, large hail, heavy rain and wind gusts of 60 mph or greater are possible early Tuesday night in St. Louis and St. Charles counties, the Weather Service stated in an advisory.

More strong storms are expected late Wednesday, and storms also are possible Thursday and Friday.