Your State's Grid
Backup Power for Missouri: Ice Storms, Joplin and the St. Louis Derechos
Missouri gets the Plains' tornadoes, the Midwest's ice and the Ohio Valley's summer wind — Joplin in 2011, the St. Louis derechos, the ice storms of the 2000s. Here is the plan for a state that gets all three.
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What's in this article
22 May 2011. An EF5 tornado crossed Joplin on a Sunday evening, destroyed about a third of the city, and killed over 150 people. verify Five years earlier, two ice storms in a single winter had left hundreds of thousands of Ameren customers dark for over a week around St. Louis. verify And most summers, a derecho or severe storm takes out one of the two big metros.
Missouri sits where three regional disasters overlap.
Why Missouri is its own problem
Tornadoes in the southwest. Joplin, Springfield, the Ozarks — the eastern edge of Tornado Alley, with violent storms in spring and sometimes at night.
Ice storms. The winter of 2006–07 produced two back-to-back ice storms that crippled the St. Louis region and southwest Missouri. Ameren's restoration took over a week. Freezing rain remains the state's most reliable multi-day outage.
Summer derechos. St. Louis and Kansas City get straight-line wind events most summers, in heat, with hours of warning.
Ameren, Evergy and the co-ops. Ameren in the east, Evergy in the west, and rural electric cooperatives across the Ozarks and the Bootheel with slower restoration.
Gas heat is common. The good news for winter.
Winter: the furnace
Most Missouri houses heat with gas. Power the furnace blower through a transfer switch — a few hundred watts cycling — and the whole house stays warm on a 1,000Wh unit that also runs the fridge and the internet. Needs an electrician, fitted in autumn. The setup.
Under ice-storm sky, the car is the recharge.
| Appliance | EcoFlow DELTA 21,024 Wh | Anker SOLIX C10001,056 Wh | Bluetti AC200L2,048 Wh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gas furnace blower~400W running, cycles ~40% of the time | 5.4 hr | 5.6 hr | 11 hr |
| Full-size refrigerator~150W running, cycles ~35% of the time | 17 hr | 17 hr | 33 hr |
| Box fan~75W running | 12 hr | 12 hr | 23 hr |
| Wi-Fi router + modem~20W running | 44 hr | 45 hr | 87 hr |
Summer: wind and heat
Derechos give hours of warning and hit in heat.
Plugged in permanently. A unit at 100% when the wind arrives is the plan.
Fans, not AC. A box fan on a battery runs for a day. A window unit empties a 2,000Wh pack in hours. One closed room, curtains drawn.
Post-storm sky is clear. Panels earn their keep through a multi-day summer restoration.
What we'd buy, by situation
St. Louis, Kansas City suburbs — gas heat
A 1,000Wh unit and a transfer switch, plugged in permanently. The EcoFlow DELTA 2 or Anker SOLIX C1000 wired to the furnace. Panels for the summer.
Springfield, Joplin, the Ozarks — tornado and co-op territory
2,000Wh class, panels, and a shelter first. The Bluetti AC200L. Co-op restoration after a big event is slow, and clear post-storm sky makes panels the recharge.
On a well, or with medical equipment
The whole-home conversation. A well pump needs 240V and a transfer switch. Much of the Ozarks is on wells.
What not to buy in Missouri
A battery as the tornado-season purchase. Buy the shelter.
Electric space heaters. A 1,500W heater empties a 1,000Wh unit in under an hour. Power the furnace.
A generator without a CO alarm. Every Missouri ice storm produces carbon monoxide deaths in garages. verify Buy the alarm in the same trip.
The free things, which matter most
Plug it in and leave it. The derecho gives no useful warning.
Know your utility. Ameren, Evergy or a co-op — different maps, different restoration orders.
Run the drill before winter. Kill the main breaker on a Saturday and find out whether the furnace plan works.
Register medical equipment. Free, one form.
The picks, in detail
Specs come from data/products.json, so they're the same everywhere on this site.
EcoFlow
EcoFlow DELTA 2
The one most people should buy. It refills fast enough that a short sunny break between storm bands actually matters.
- Capacity
- 1,024 Wh
- AC output
- 1,800W
- Weight
- 27 lb
What's good
- Wall recharge is genuinely quick — useful when power flickers back for an hour
- LiFePO4 cells, so it tolerates being left plugged in for years
- Six AC outlets means no daisy-chained power strips on the kitchen counter
- Add an extra battery later instead of buying a whole second unit
What's annoying
- The fan is audible in a quiet bedroom at night
- 1800W ceiling rules out most space heaters and hair dryers
- Expansion batteries cost nearly as much as the unit itself
Who this is wrong for
Anyone who needs to power a well pump, an electric water heater or a central AC. It will not start them, and it is not a whole-home unit.
Anker
Anker SOLIX C1000
The best-built 1kWh unit on the market, and the one that fits an RV bay without a shoehorn.
- Capacity
- 1,056 Wh
- AC output
- 1,800W
- Weight
- 28.44 lb
What's good
- The most compact 1kWh box here — it genuinely fits where others don't
- Anker's warranty service is the least painful in this category
- Full wall recharge in under an hour
- Quiet fan behaviour under moderate load
What's annoying
- Expansion battery caps you at about 2,112Wh and is expensive
- Fewer solar input options than EcoFlow
- Anker discounts less often, so you rarely catch a deep sale
Who this is wrong for
People who need to run more than 1800W. And it won't grow with you — expansion is limited.
Bluetti
Bluetti AC200L
Specs unverifiedA lot of battery for the money, with the port selection of a small workshop.
- Capacity
- 2,048 Wh
- AC output
- 2,400W
- Weight
- 61.9 lb
What's good
- Expandable, unlike most Bluetti units at this size
- A genuinely useful spread of ports including a 30A RV outlet
- Fast recharge for a 2kWh unit
What's annoying
- Shorter warranty than EcoFlow and Jackery offer
- Big and awkward to store
- Bluetti's US service turnaround has been inconsistent
Who this is wrong for
Small apartments. It's physically large and you will trip over it.
Questions people actually ask
What are the main outage risks in Missouri?
How long do Ameren and Evergy outages last?
What size backup for a Missouri household?
Do I need solar panels in Missouri?
Should I get a storm shelter first?
Who wrote this
Dhruvil Domadiya
Founder and editor, GreenCommuteGuide
I started GreenCommuteGuide because backup power is sold with numbers that sound impressive and mean very little — watt-hours on the box, surge ratings that turn out to be a boost mode, charge times quoted to 80% and printed as though they were full. I set the rules this site runs on: every spec is checked against the manufacturer's own documentation, anything we have not verified is marked as unverified on the page rather than quietly published, prices are never shown because they go stale, and every review names at least one product not to buy and who it is wrong for. Where I have not tested something myself, the page says so.
- · Sets and enforces the editorial standards on this site — unverified claims are flagged on the page, and the build fails if they are not
- · Specs are taken from manufacturers' own published documentation, never from retailer listings, and the source and date are recorded for each product
- · No payment is accepted for a rating, a ranking, or a positive verdict
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