For the second day in a row, commuters heading home from work had to deal with traffic jams in Jefferson City.
A thunderstorm packing strong winds and heavy rains hit the central, east and southern sections of the city around 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
In its wake, there were several reports of utility poles being blown over, including on East High, East Miller and East Dunklin Streets.
Power lines along Elm Street adjacent to U.S. 50/63 were blown over the highway near Clark Avenue, shutting down all lanes of traffic, blocking rush-hour motorists and causing authorities to divert vehicles to nearby streets to get around the area.
Large amounts of traffic moved onto East McCarty and East High streets as a detour around the closed section of highway, which caused long lines of vehicles to back up. Some traffic lights in the affected area were without power at the time, further complicating the situation.
Ameren Missouri crews were able to get lines and debris removed from the highway so that traffic could get through the area around 5:45 p.m.
At around 10 o'clock Thursday night, the highway is expected to close again for around 20 minutes so that new utility lines can be stretched over the right-of-way.
Ameren utility crews also had to deal with power outages on the east side of U.S 54 in Cole County going from Jefferson City to Taos and stretching down south to Brazito to Osage Bend.
No injuries were reported in connection with any of these incidents.
Earlier coverage:
US 50/63 at Clark Avenue in Jefferson City temporarily was closed in both directions due to power lines down during today's 5 o'clock rush hour. Traffic backed up along adjacent and parallel streets.
Jefferson City police report the divided highway reopened around 5:45 p.m.
The westbound lanes of the highway opened first, and the driving lane of the eastbound highway opened shortly thereafter, but traffic will still be backed up for some time.
Among the related power outages, the traffic light at East McCarty and Eastland Drive went out. Motorists have been treating it like a three-way stop.
Large amounts of traffic tried to use East McCarty and East High streets as a detour around the closed section of highway, which caused long lines of vehicles to back up.