. (Feb. 21, 2014) – Ameren Illinois crews have safely restored power to more than 54,000 customers and will continue to work throughout the day after Thursday's storms and high winds caused outages across the company's service territory. As of 8:00 this morning, only 147 Ameren Illinois customers remain without power.

The largest areas without power were in Adams, Madison, St. Clair, Champaign, Sangamon, Shelby and Macon counties, but wind-related outages were scattered throughout the Ameren Illinois service territory. In addition, the winds were strong enough in some areas to topple transmission lines.

Ameren Illinois activated its Emergency Operations Center at 4:30 p.m. Thursday to coordinate all restoration efforts.

"Our crews went on alert status at 6:45 a.m. Thursday morning," said Richard J. Mark, president and CEO of Ameren Illinois. "When Mother Nature decided to hit us with series of intense storms with straight-line winds beginning in Quincy and the Metro East area and moving across our service territory, we were immediately able to dispatch field personnel to assess damage but the continual wind gusts initially made it difficult to repair downed lines."

"Please remember, it is hard to tell the difference between an Ameren Illinois electric line and a telephone line or cable line. Treat any line as an energized and dangerous line and stay away from it," Mark added. "If you see a downed power line, please call us 800-755-5000 to report it."