Ameren Illinois crews are continuing to make steady progress in restoring power to customers following a line of strong winds that made 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 were most impacted.
At its peak, at 12:50 p.m., more than 19,500 customers were without power. Customers reported more that 230 pole-related issues, 330 wire-related issues and 270 tree-related issues. Currently, approximately 9,800 customers remain without power at this time.
"The wind has provided a tremendous challenge for crews working this afternoon slowing our restoration efforts," said Ron Pate, senior vice president of Operations and Technical Services, Ameren Illinois. "Despite these challenges, we are continuing to make steady progress and will be working throughout the evening until power to all customers has been restored."
Pate also noted that Ameren Illinois has called in additional personnel from outside of the impacted area to help with restoration efforts.
Customers are reminded of the following safety tips during and after a storm:
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.
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 AmerenIllinois.com. Follow us on Twitter @AmerenIllinois and Facebook.