More than 1,300 Ameren customers on the east side of Centralia have been without power since around 9:45 Saturday morning.
At least part of the problem appears to be centered around the substation on Pleasant and Frazier. Those in the area reported some visible fire and smoke after an explosion. Centralia City Firemen were called, but said there was no visible fire or smoke on their arrival but the substation had taken itself off-line resulting in at least some of the power issues.
The fire department stood by until Ameren crews arrived and they are now working on power restoration.
Ameren has not yet responded to a call seeking information on the cause of the outage and the estimated time power may come back on.
Ameren’s outage map indicates 1,330 customers without power extending from as far west as the Centralia Library to the Airport Road area.
We’ll have further updates as they become available.
