Repair Continues to Power Lines Downed by Tuesday Night Storm

(With additional reporting by the Association Press)

Ameren says its crews are working to turn the lights back on for more than 29,000 Illinois customers who were still without power Wednesday afternoon --- following Tuesday night's severe storm. That number is down from a peak of roughly 83,000 outages in Ameren Illinois service territory.

Ameren Illinois spokesman Leigh Morris said he hopes to see electricity restored to most households by Wednesday night --- but some work will take more time.

"I'll be honest with you," Morris said. "we're not going to get everybody back on (Wednesday). Some of the damage is very extensive, and we're going to have outages persisting through Thursday. It's going to be Thursday afternoon and into the evening hours and perhaps even into Friday, before every last customer is back on."

Morris said most of the remaining outages are concentrated in southern Illinois, including Carbondale, Carterville, DuQuoin and Mount Vernon. In east-central Illinois, a few hundred households were still without power Wednesday afternoon in Piatt and Macon Counties.

Morris said the severity and complexity of some of the damage is responsible for the extra time it's taking to finish repairs. For instance, he cites the Rend Lake reservoir near Benton, where 12 Ameren power poles were knocked into the water.

"We actually had to bring in specialized equipment," Morris explained. "Because these poles aren't lying by the side of lake, they're in the lake. You have to have equipment that floats --- that can get out there and repair that damage that we done."

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service say its crews are out inspecting some of the storm damage, trying to confirm whether it was the work of tornadoes. There were no immediate reports of serious injuries. Officials say the strong winds overturned some rail cars, at least one tractor-trailer and damaged dozens of buildings.