News Releases

Ameren Illinois crews have mobilized and continue power restoration efforts in response to a line of strong winds that continue to make their way across Illinois Saturday afternoon. Customers in the Peoria metro area, Galesburg, LaSalle, Danville, and other points throughout the central portion of the Ameren Illinois service territory are impacted. More than 40 poles and 50 wires are down, in addition to approximately 50 trees impacting service in the area. 

Ron Pate, senior vice president of Operations and Technical Services, Ameren Illinois, said the company has been monitoring the weather system for several days and placed employees and electric utility contractor son alert status at 1:45 p.m.  Thursday afternoon. The company activated the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at 1:30 p.m. today.

"Ameren Illinois and contract crews are out assessing the damage and determining the appropriate steps to get power restored as quickly and safely as possible," said Pate. "Our first priority is to work closely with hospitals, police and fire departments, and local emergency officials to update lists of critical facilities that are without power. We then implement power restoration plans focused on restoring power for the greatest number of customers in the shortest length of time.”

Ameren Illinois encourages customers to use the following safety tips during and after a storm:

• 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 you see a downed line, always call Ameren Illinois at 1-800-755-5000.
• 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 http://AmerenIllinois.com, customers and media can receive timely updates on outage restoration by following the Ameren Illinois news feed at http://twitter.com/AmerenIllinois and http://Facebook.com/AmerenIllinois.

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