Composite poles limit damage, speed restoration times in Wildwood

Smart Energy Plan upgrades support grid resiliency and customer reliability

On March 14, an EF-3 tornado touched down near Villa Ridge in Franklin County, staying on the ground for more than 13 miles as it headed into St. Louis County and toward the community of Wildwood. It was one of more than a dozen tornadoes spawned by a large line of severe weather, making this one of the most active tornado days on record for the area. The damage to electric infrastructure was widespread, totaling more than 400 broken poles across Missouri and Illinois. 

Often, the force of a falling tree or large limb – even high winds – can cause multiple wooden power poles to snap in a row, known as a cascade. “Removing and replacing a single damaged utility pole can take a crew of lineworkers up to five hours to replace,” said Jay Garrett, senior manager of Ameren Missouri’s Meramec Division. “The more poles involved in a cascade, the longer it takes to restore power for our customers.”

To help minimize this type of cascading damage, Ameren Missouri is storm-hardening the electric grid with composite poles. These poles are made of fiberglass and resin, providing added strength and flexibility over traditional wooden poles. They are easy to spot, even to the untrained eye, because of their distinct gray color. Ameren Missouri installed approximately 800 composite poles in 2024 and has added thousands to the system since the start of the Smart Energy Plan in 2019.

In 2024, one such storm-hardening project was completed near Wildwood. This infrastructure upgrade included strategically adding composite poles to strengthen the circuit along St. Albans Road just west of Highway 100. It was in this very spot where one of the March 14 tornadoes – the one that traveled 13 miles across two counties – slammed into this newly storm-hardened line.

During the March 14 storm, strategically placed composite poles kept the line up and prevented widespread outages in the area.

"Although multiple wood poles were knocked down by the tornado, the composite poles 'held the line' as they were designed to do and prevented larger cascading damage,” said Garrett. “This allowed crews to more quickly restore power to customers.”

Thanks to investments through the Smart Energy Plan, Ameren Missouri has storm-hardened more than 250 miles of power lines with composite poles, composite crossarms and other upgrades. To learn more about the Smart Energy Plan and how it's supporting customer reliability, please visit AmerenMissouri.com/SmartEnergyPlan.