Power outages plague southern Missouri, northwest Arkansas

UPDATE 5/28/2024 — Thousands of people in southern Missouri and northwest Arkansas remain without power following strong weekend storms.

Just over 3,700 Barry Electric Co-op customers in Barry County remain without power, which is down from approximately 6,800 on Memorial Day.

According to the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas outage map, there are about 20,620 Carroll Electric Cooperative Corporation customers without power. Affected counties include:

• Benton County, Arkansas – 17,480
• Carroll County, Arkansas – 1,249
• Madison County, Arkansas – 1,146
• Newton County, Arkansas – 1
• Pope County, Arkansas – 1
• Washington County, Arkansas – 9
• Barry County, Missouri – 724
• Stone County, Missouri – 10

Original story:

CASSVILLE, Mo. – About 6,800 households and businesses in Barry County are without power this morning, down from about 12,500 Sunday night, with widespread storm damage throughout the county Saturday night and Sunday.

The Emergency Management Director of Barry County said outages caused by downed trees and power lines are mostly concentrated in the Cassville, Shell Knob and Eagle Rock areas.

“There are dozens and dozens of power poles down, mostly in the southern part of the county,” David Compton said.

At least two dozen homes sustained serious damage from downed trees, he said, although no injuries were reported and homeowners have found shelter with friends and family. Shelter can be arranged for anyone who needs it, but that has not been necessary yet, according to Compton.

Three storms came through the area Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service.

The first was around 2:30 a.m. that brought 60 mph winds, followed by another about 3 a.m. with 70 mph winds and another Sunday afternoon which brought golf-ball-size hail.

Crews from Barry County Electric Co-op, Carroll County (Ark.) Co-op and Liberty Electric have crews out in force and crews from other areas have been contacted.

Additional crews are spread pretty thin, however. With such a large area of the Midwest hit by storms, including Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas, “the number of crews to respond gets pretty limited,” Compton said.

At 8 a.m. today, there were about 5,200 customers without power from Barry County Electric and 1,600 without power from Carroll County Co-op, he said. Liberty Electric has restored power to all its customers.

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