News Archive

Friday night, March 14, 2025, a tornado touched down near Bakersfield in southeastern Ozark County. It continued north east skirting the south side of West Plains and continuing into Oregon County causing damage near Rover and Thomasville areas.

As the tornadoes moved north-northeast across the service area, power outage reports rolled in rapidly. Early Saturday morning, the highest number was around 6,300 members without power.

HOEC currently shows power has been restored to all members from the tornadoes and storms of last Friday! If you remain without power, please contact us so we can get any issue corrected and get your power back on. You can report an outage through the SmartHub Mobile App or here on our website.

General Manager Dan Singletary provides an update on remaining power outages. Plan A: optimistic outlook!

UPDATE March 31st, 10:15am:  The Burn Ban for Howell County has been lifted.  Howell County reminds that if you are planning a controlled burn you still need to contact Fire Dispatch at 417-256-0209 and let them know when and where you are planning to burn.

Howell County is officially under a Burn Ban until further notice.

This picture puts into perspective the obstacles HOEC has been facing. Between poles and lines down from tornadoes to the horrible wind, members all across our service area have been affected. Any time we have a storm in a concentrated area, we move equipment and linemen to that area to respond.

Please postpone burning any brush or tornado debris; the risk of a fire getting out of control is too high right now.

General Manager Dan Singletary provides an update on power outages as of Thursday morning, March 20th. High winds created issues yesterday, but all the linemen here are on it, working to restore power to ALL our members.

Crews faced additional challenges today as the wind wrecked havoc on the lines and made it tough hanging wire. It even caused some additional outages. All in all it was still positive. Here are a couple of the great views linemen have sent in over the past few days! Thank you for your continued support. We currently have 1,230 member without power.

Winds have been very strong today; unfortunately, we now have another 700 members out due to the wind. We are aware of these new outages and crews continue to work.

Mother Nature is doing her best to slow our progress today. Due to these winds, we also have multiple new outages on top of those caused by Friday's tornadoes.