Ameren Illinois officials say they have located a failed piece of equipment that brought down a major transmission line on Tuesday morning leaving more than 22,000 without power.
Spokesperson Brian Bretsch says repairs will continue into Tuesday evening, but all but less than 100 customers have been switched to other lines. Those still left without power are in the Mt. Vernon area.
Ameren’s outage website indicated the original problem resulted in 7,373 customers in the Centralia area and another 6,153 in Jefferson County to lose power along with some in Washington and Perry Counties. In addition, the major line fed 12 Tri-County Electric substations resulting in another 7,363 without electricity. Most of the switching was completed before noon.
Bretsch says it is not clear if it was the extreme cold or something else that caused the failure.
