Power Company Taken To Task Over Outage

Missouri and Illinois officials are calling on an electric utility to explain why thousands of customers remained without power a week after a harsh winter storm and offer solutions to prevent another extended mass outage.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt on Thursday asked his state's Public Service Commission to hold public hearings and for St. Louis-based Ameren Corp. to provide a "clear" plan for preventing a recurrence.

"People that are paying the utility bill deserve to have the consistent delivery of services," Blunt said at a news conference in Jefferson City. "That's not happening with Ameren today."

Heading into Friday, some 19,000 Ameren customers still were without power, all but about 1,000 of them in Illinois, spokesman Tim Fox said. At the peak, more than 500,000 Ameren customers in both states were without power.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn also pressed utility regulators to investigate, calling the lingering power disruptions a "systemic failure" despite the efforts of thousands of repair workers from 14 states.

"It's not a big surprise that Illinois and Missouri have snow and ice in the winter," Quinn said Thursday during a news conference at a senior citizen's center in East St. Louis, Ill. "We need to ask the question why Ameren has had such great difficulty making sure the system is reliable."

On Wednesday, the Illinois Commerce Commission said it would review plans for an investigation into Ameren's preparedness and response to the storm at its public meetings Dec. 19-20.

Blunt said two massive outages in the St. Louis area in recent months compelled him to declare a state of emergency and activate Missouri's National Guard. He suggested regulators delay Ameren's pending requests for rate increases until the utility details "how they plan to avoid what is becoming an expensive, inconvenient and dangerous trend."

Quinn proposed that any Ameren shortcomings pinpointed by investigators draw fines for the company's top executives.

Ameren said it welcomed the scrutiny.

"We believe we've thrown every possible resource into this," Ameren spokeswoman Susan Gallagher said. She noted that repair crews trying to fix the latest outages had installed 391 miles of wire as of Thursday morning — more than Ameren normally uses in six months.

"Given all the storms, all the factors, there's no question there are areas for improvement," Gallagher said.

But this isn't the first time it's taken Ameren this long to get power restored. In July, strong winds and heavy rain knocked power out to thousands. Then, it took the company much more than a week to get everyone's lights back on.

The storm that plowed through the Midwest last week dropped snow, in some cases more than a foot, and coated the region with ice before carrying the wind and thunderstorms into the Northeast.

At least 19 deaths in Illinois and Missouri have been blamed on the storm or the frigid temperatures that have followed.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich this week declared 49 counties state disaster areas and on Thursday was joined by members of the state's congressional delegation in asking President Bush to declare them federal disaster areas. Blunt also hopes for a presidential disaster declaration based on damage reported in all 114 counties.

[ihave4rugratshelp]

As an Ameren UE customer, I can tell you that Ameren's first concern is their profits. Fortunently, I am located in the central part of MO, and our electricity was not affected by the foot of snow that we received. I'm sure Ameren will bemoan the fact that they're rate increase is in trouble more than all the people in St.Louis and the Metro East who still don't have power a week later.

[ljburnell]

I am a single mother to three and grandmother to two.Have struggled many times just to pay the electric bill,and found myself even shut off for being a day late,so I can most definatley identify with Ann Hill of this story.Utilitiy companys are missing a humanity chip in their configuration.Would like to see sombody "shut them off for a day" for not being able to deliver.

[mjv2944]

Right now Ameren is trying to increase their electric rate by 40 to 50%, so I am sure this was a planned problem trying to get the Ok for the increase. By the way their last quarter profits were in excess of 1 billion, I just don't feel sorry for them. If that increase goes throught, there will be a lot of people choosing between eating good or staying warm, and these big businesses don't care, thats our problem not their's.

Here in North Carolina, our power company year round inspects the areas around every power line to ensure trees are not overhanging their wires, they have "right of way" when it comes to the trees due to severe weather such as the many hurricanes, it has been a long time since we have lost power due to a hurricance, 1999 to be exact, this is something that most power companies should do. I understand that some lines will come due to heavy ice on them but for the most part it is the trees that fall on them. It time for them to declare right of way when it comes to their power lines

[zhucolins]

i am a chinese. see that you have a lot of problems bks of the ice and snow,i don't feel well.yesterday i heard from the news that Jack was found died after a weeks' missing.
But i definitely understand the frustration you encounter,bks in my hometown in China always was hitted by the typhoon during june and july ,and cause a lot of casualties and some impact on our normal life.
But i convinced that you can defeat the nature disaster.
bless you ,our friend

[olgreyghost]

Oh, great, the government is coming to the rescue, again, with investigations into the crisis. Let's make it a capital offense to not be able to respond quickly enough to a natural disaster (like the loss of sales of electricity due to the inability to deliver is not enough). It worked for Mussolini and the Italian train system...