DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — Over 43 hours after severe storms swept through central Illinois, some Decatur residents remain without power on Friday as Ameren Illinois crews work to restore service.
Ameren Illinois said about 48,000 customers lost power during Wednesday's storms, which brought tornadoes, strong winds and widespread damage across the state.
"Wednesday evening about 7 o'clock, we peaked at about 48,000 customers out of power," said Jason Klein, vice president of electric operations for Ameren Illinois. "In the last two weeks, we've restored almost 300,000 customers, with both storm events."
On Decatur's west side, utility crews spent Friday replacing damaged poles and power lines. Residents said they have been dealing with fallen trees, flooding and repeated delays to restoration estimates.
"We've been following it and I've been talking to these people, I've been talking to the Ameren people," said resident Cindy Hale. "Ameren has pushed back our restoration time about four or five times. So, we just never really knew."
Ameren said it brought in outside crews before the storms arrived and now has hundreds of workers helping with restoration efforts.
"We currently have about 1,700 people working this storm restoration effort," Klein said. "And we've had additional linemen come in from 10 different states as far west as Kansas, as far east as Maryland and Florida."
Klein said the storm damaged about 400 utility poles, with each replacement taking four to six hours.
"There's also a lot of downed trees that we're working with our communities and our emergency management agencies for," Klein said. "We just really want everybody to know our crews are working as efficiently and as safely as possible, to get their lights back on."
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