Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn visited East St. Louis warming center, demand investigation of prolonged Ameren power outage

East St. Louis (Today)Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn was joined by elected officials, school administrators, community activists and church leaders in East St. Louis in calling for a state investigation of the week-long power outage that has left thousands of Illinoisans in the cold.

 

Quinn talked with Metro East residents hit hard by the storm-related power failure at a news conference in the Clyde C. Jordan Senior Citizen Center, 6755 State St in  East St. Louis.

 The lethal winter storm that swept through central Illinois last Thursday cut electricity for an estimated 235,000 Ameren customers in Illinois, prompting Governor Rod Blagojevich to declare state disaster areas in 49 counties. This week, hundreds of National Guard troops have gone door-to-door throughout the storm-damaged area to check on residents left in the cold and dark by the prolonged power outage.

"I want to salute the many local organizations that have done such a great job of providing emergency services during this power outage, by creating overnight shelters and serving meals to those without electricity," Quinn said.  To buttress those local efforts, Governor Blagojevich has launched the Keep Warm Illinois Campaign, offering 122 state buildings and seven Illinois Tollway oases as daytime warming centers for anyone seeking refuge from the cold.

With months of winter cold and snow still ahead, Quinn encouraged everyone in Illinois to take steps now to keep safe and warm during future storms.  "Now is the time to make sure you've done everything you can to make your home energy-efficient and weather-tight," he said.  Quinn also encouraged eligible families to apply for LIHEAP, a state- and federally funded energy assistance program offering grants to help lower-income households pay their gas and electric bills.

Quinn criticized Ameren for its failure to provide reliable electric power to its customers, as required under Illinois' Public Utilities Act.  "After six straight days of hard work by overburdened repair crews, there is still systemic failure, with tens of thousands of people left without power in Illinois," Quinn said.  "I cannot understand why Ameren was not better prepared to deal with last Thursday's storm. Here in Illinois, we expect ice and snow in the winter - and we expect these utility companies to invest in preventive maintenance to give their customers reliable power when they need it most."

In February of this year, the staff of the Illinois Commerce Commission warned Ameren that its failure to comply with federal standards for tree-trimming was putting Ameren customers at serious risk. However, instead of trimming overgrown tree branches that threatened power lines, Ameren  paid for television commercials designed to scare their customers into supporting to 40 to 55% rate hike scheduled to hit Illinois consumers next month.

In the wake of the 2003 cascading blackout that hit eight Northeastern states and left more than 50 million Americans in the dark, Quinn chaired the Special Task Force on the Condition and Future of the Illinois Energy Infrastructure.  The Task Force's final report, Blackout Solutions, found that Illinois utilities' failure to perform necessary tree-trimming on a regular schedule put the state's power grid at risk.

            The Blackout Solutions report and other information is available at BlackoutSolutions.org.