After 2025 tornado, a stronger energy grid rises in North St. Louis

Damaged line rebuilt with storm-hardening upgrades supports 1,300 customers

The devastating tornado that swept across St. Louis on May 16, 2025, caused significant damage to electric infrastructure throughout the region. The storm broke more than 800 wooden power poles, setting off a multi-day effort to safely restore service to tens of thousands of customers affected by the damage. The night of the storm, Ameren Missouri had more than 500 crew members on the ground — a number that grew to more than 2,000 as contractors and utilities across the country sent reinforcements to the St. Louis area.

“We knew from the start this would be a large and challenging restoration effort,” said Landy Wince, senior director of operations, Ameren Missouri. “Our crews, contractors and partner utilities worked to restore customers as quickly and safely as possible, and we also looked for opportunities to make parts of the system stronger as we rebuilt.”

Crews work to rebuild damaged infrastructure along Hall Street in St. Louis following May 16 tornado.

Just before crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois, the May 16 tornado tore across Hall Street — an important manufacturing corridor in North St. Louis. The tornado's impact caused wooden power pole after wooden power pole to snap, commonly known as cascading damage in the industry. 

Replacing a single wooden power pole can take a three-person crew about four hours. Due to the extensive damage, it took crews multiple days to restore power to the Hall Street circuit, known as Maline-81; however, crews did more than just rebuild the line. By leveraging its Smart Energy Plan, Ameren Missouri was able to build storm-hardening benefits directly into the restoration work.

This section of Maline-81 was slated to receive storm-hardening upgrades later in 2025 when it was hit by the May 16 tornado. Thanks to strategic planning, all the materials for that work were ready to deploy as part of the company's restoration response. Ameren designers and engineers worked in the field with crews from Intren to complete the rebuild of the damaged section in just five days.

“This was an incredibly complex rebuild, involving more than 25 broken wood poles and two high-powered 34kV lines spanning about half a mile down the road,” said Doug O’Brien, electric distribution designer for Ameren Missouri. “To execute the upgrade as designed, crews not only rebuilt the damaged line but constructed an entirely new, storm-hardened line across the street to support customers served by the Maline-81 circuit.”

The quick action in response to the May 16 storm allowed Ameren Missouri to bring these benefits to customers months ahead of schedule. The remaining work on other portions of the circuit is expected to be completed in 2026. For more information on Ameren Missouri's Smart Energy Plan, please visit AmerenMissouri.com/plan.