Power expected to return by Monday afternoon

COLUMBIA — Power is expected to return by late Monday afternoon to 100 to 150 Boone County Electric customers affected by the ice storm, most living in Ashland.

Another 20 to 30 customers are expected to still be without power until Tuesday morning, depending on the coming weather, according to Ryan Euliss of Boone County Electric Cooperative.

Preventative tree trimming during the summer kept the storm from becoming a bigger problem, Euliss said.

During the peak of outages, 1,500 were without power.

Boone County Electric did not have to call in additional employees to handle the storm damages and does not anticipate needing to do so, Euliss said.