20,000 still without electricity in region; power might be out until Friday or Saturday

Thousands of homes and businesses remained in the dark Thursday after powerful storms socked the metro-east Wednesday afternoon. And while Ameren Illinois crews worked to restore power, a thunderstorm Thursday evening that packed heavy rain, lightning, wind gusts and some hail did them no favors.

According to Ameren Illinois spokesman Brian Bretsch, the majority of customers that still did not have electricity Thursday evening should be back online Friday night, though there may be some homes that might not have power until Saturday morning.

As of 9:30 p.m. Thursday, 20,555 customers were without power, the bulk of which —18,659 customers— were in St. Clair County.

Bretsch said there were up to 1,700 Ameren workers and contractors on the ground working to restore power Thursday, including mutual aid resources from other state utilities including Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.

With most storms, Ameren can switch circuits to find a new source of electricity, but almost 24 hours after a powerful storm knocked out power for more than 100,000 homes in the St. Louis region, Bretsch said the strength of the wind was one of the biggest reasons so many people were continuing to have problems.

Crews reported significant damage to large sub-transmission infrastructure and transmission poles, and vegetation-clearing is needed to reach critical facilities, according to Ameren.

Additional calls flooded dispatch centers Thursday evening as residents reported fallen trees and utility poles due to that storm.

“We understand the challenges that this outage is posing to our customers in the metro-east,” said Ron Pate, senior vice president of operations and technical services for Ameren Illinois. “Our first priority is to ensure that we are able to safely restore power. We are focusing our efforts on repairing equipment that feeds the largest number of customers. This could include high-voltage transmission lines and structures, substations or main feeder lines. After the damage is repaired, we work to restore the greatest number of customers in a timely manner, keeping safety in mind. As power is restored to communities and neighborhoods, we then work to restore individual customers.”

Wednesday’s storm was blamed in the death of a Belleville resident the St. Clair County Coroner’s office identified as Jeremy Birch.

Birch, 36, was found in his back yard of his home on South 18th Street in contact with a live power line. Deputy Coroner Tom Boyd said Birch was pulling a downed tree limb off of a fence when he made contact with the fence, unaware that a downed wire was touching the fence.

Birch’s preliminary cause of death was electrocution.

A few metro-east residents said they had been waiting on the power to turn back on since Wednesday afternoon.

Montel Cox counted 22 hours that he had been without power at his home in Centreville.

“We called and it could be a couple days,” Cox said, adding that he called Ameren for help. “My mom’s house is right next door and they have power. Her and the neighbor next to her have power. My house and a couple houses down don’t have power, and then down the street a little bit more, they have power.”

“It’s too hot for this,” the 23-year-old added.

Areas in Belleville remained without power Thursday, affecting houses and businesses. David Burley, a shop manager at 161 Appliances off Lebanon Avenue and Illinois 161, said the business lost power around 3:30 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Many of the businesses surrounding Burley at the busy intersection were closed and left in the dark.

“I’m going to make it. I don’t care,” Burley said. “We’re going to run our business no matter what.”

Burley said his home in Fairview Heights had power, but he said he knew a few who were still waiting for their power to be restored.

“They’re kind of fed up; they’re kind of disgusted. Their food is going bad; it’s hot in the house. They’ve got kids,” Burley said. “People out here are suffering, but there are going to be times like this when there’s not power.”

The loss of power forced Southwestern Illinois College to close its Belleville campus until noon Thursday. The college’s other campuses were operating on a normal schedule.

One metro-east golf course was partially closed for golfers Thursday due to fallen trees and debris from the storm. Tamarack Golf Course general manager Steve Liter said they are expected to be fully open on Friday after the cleanup.

“It hit in the evening when golfers were already here and the tree damage across the road obviously was blocking the road, so no one could get out until we chain-sawed all the trees out and got them off the road,” Liter said. “That was a little hectic.”

Volunteers at the golf course had been working since 5 a.m. Thursday picking up debris.

In Highland, powerful storms toppled a tree onto a home, leaving the residence uninhabitable.

“We were walking in from the backyard when the storm started to pick up,” said Cathy Lienemann, who lives at the corner of 17th Street and Pine. “We saw branches flying everywhere, so we went inside.”

No sooner did they get indoors, and the winds picked up, uprooting a nearby tree that smashed through the roof.

“I went outside and saw the damage and started crying,” Lienemann said. “It was very shocking to see.”

This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 6:59 AM with the headline "20,000 still without electricity in region; power might be out until Friday or Saturday."