News Releases

Ameren Illinois field crews and support staff restored service to 21,605 customers in the wake of last night’s strong storms.

“Fast moving storms and heavy winds moved through the service territory last night, leaving dozens of broken power poles and damaged lines throughout our service territory,” said Ron Pate, senior vice president of Operations and Technical Services, Ameren Illinois. “Crews worked throughout the evening to get service restored to customers in the affected areas as quickly and safely as possible.”

The strong storms prompted the company to activate its Emergency Operations Center on Wednesday at 10 p.m. to help coordinate response efforts. Field and support teams were mobilized and worked throughout the evening to address electric service disruptions that were scattered throughout the Ameren Illinois area. Crews were concentrated in Galesburg, Peoria, Kewanee, LaSalle and areas in West Central Illinois to restore power. The peak outage time was 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, with 14,722 customers impacted.

As of 7:00 a.m. Thursday, 4,700 customers in the areas of Peoria, Galesburg, Quincy and Macomb remain without power. Crews will continue to work throughout the day to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.

Ameren Illinois storm response trailers were sent to Jacksonville and Galesburg to provide supplies for crews working in those areas.

Customer safety tips

Customers are also reminded of the following tips:

• Call Ameren Illinois at 1-800-755-5000 as soon as possible to report a downed line, natural gas odor, or an outage.
• Stay away from downed power lines because these lines may still be energized. During an outage, individuals are asked to stay indoors after sunset because downed lines may not be visible. Stay away from brush, shrubs and fallen trees that may be hiding these lines.
• If your electric service is interrupted, unplug or protect sensitive computer and electronic equipment with a high-quality surge protector.
• In addition to the safety and outage information available at AmerenIllinois.com, customers and media can receive timely updates on outage restoration by following the Ameren Illinois news feed at twitter.com/AmerenIllinois and Facebook.com/AmerenIllinois 

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About Ameren Illinois
Ameren Illinois delivers energy to 1.2 million electric and 816,000 natural gas customers in Illinois. Our mission is to power the quality of life. Our service territory covers more than 1,200 communities and 43,700 square miles. For more information, visit AmerenIllinois.com, find us on Twitter @AmerenIllinois or Facebook.