By Matt Sepic/Julie Bierach, KWMU
SAINT LOUIS, MO – A line of thunderstorms knocked out power to thousands of people in St. Louis early Monday.
Weather officials reported wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour.
A woman from the suburb of St. John is in critical condition after she was hit by a falling tree limb.
At the height of the outage, around 63,000 customers in the St. Louis area were without electricity. Workers restored about 55,000 of those customers as of 6 p-m Monday evening.
Ameren spokesman Tim Fox, says the utility company brought in outside crews to help with construction efforts.
"We brought in about a thousand people from around Missouri and Illinois, other Ameren crews, to come in and help out," said Fox.
Another Ameren spokeperson, Susan Gallagher says North St. Louis County reported to the most outages.
"Berkeley, Florissant, St. Charles, Maryland Heights," Gallagher said. "Those are the areas hardest hit. There are pockets, though throughout the city, University City and some parts of Clayton."
Ameren has begun an aggressive tree-trimming program, and plans to bury some of its lines. Gallagher said crews will put some power lines underground in Florissant starting in the fall.
Many school districts in the St. Louis area were scheduled to begin the new school year Monday.
However students in the Hazelwood district got an extra day of summer vacation because of the power outage.
The Ferguson-Florissant district will begin classes as normal.