Officials at Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative, Inc. (HOEC), report that approximately 553 members remain without power as a result of storms that moved through the area in the early morning hours of October 21st. HOEC crews along with crews from PIKE and Arkansas Electric worked well into the night last night. Additional crews from SEMO Electric Cooperative, Ozark Border Electric Cooperative and Black River Electric Cooperative arrived early this morning to begin assisting with the safe restoration of power to our members. Cooperation among cooperatives continues to be one of our guiding principles. High-winds coupled with saturated grounds caused trees from outside the right-of-way to fall onto lines causing the lines to fall to the ground. Currently, we have 41 broken poles. HOEC would like to remind members if they see a downed power line, please stay away from it and report it to the cooperative immediately at 417-256-2131 or 1-888-HOE-POWER. If you need to report an outage, please do so by calling our 24 hour dispatch at 417-256-2131 or 1-888-HOE-POWER. You can also report an outage on the cooperative website at www.hoecoop.org, but please note that the cooperative Facebook page is not equipped to report outages. Direct phone calls and online outage reporting go directly into our outage management system. Facebook messages do not. Myles Smith, Manager of Member Services said, “Crews are continuing to work diligently to safely restore power to our members. We appreciate the help we are receiving from the additional crews, and want to thank them for their time and efforts. As always, we greatly appreciate the patience of our members during outages.”