ALTON - Ameren Illinois spokesperson Brian Bretsch once again praised the linemen and field personnel for their dedicated work to restore power Wednesday and into Thursday after a serious storm left thousands in the dark.
"I can never say enough about them," Bretsch said of the linemen and field personnel. "When Mother Nature throws a curve ball with rain and wind, I think our group always does their best work for family and neighbors. They take great pride in restoring power as safely and efficiently as possible."
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Ameren Ilinois spokesperson Brian Bretsch said the areas of Brighton and Bunker Hill had about 1,600 customers out Wednesday for 25 minutes after a breaker inside a substation tripped, but they were able to close it and those customers were back on. Bretsch said the Wednesday outage impacted 2,000 customers around Alton (Alton (1,700) Cottage Hills (50) and Godfrey (235). East Alton had about 930 without power and there were an estimated 70 in Wood River. Storms knocked about 1,750 customers out of power in Jerseyville, Carrollton, and Chesterfield, Bretsch said.
"We have had plenty of resources in the area," Bretsch said once the storms left damage across the region.
Bretsch said that Alton was hit very hard during Wednesday's storm with an abundance of tree damage and customers without power.
"We had about 6,400 customers without power in Madison, Jersey, and Macoupin County at one time," he said. "We were able to get the Macoupin County ones back on quickly."
Bretsch said the ground was very saturated with water and that made some of the trees hit by the winds unstable.
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