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Storm response is increased as residents continue to freeze * Updated x1 *

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Illinois

Frankly, the National Guard should have been called out a whole lot sooner than yesterday. Imagine if 100,000 Chicagoans had been without power for 5 days in the freezing cold. Still, at least they’re out there now.

As hundreds of National Guard troops fanned out across iced-over central Illinois Tuesday offering help, residents shivering without power for a fifth straight day demanded to know why it is taking so long to restore electricity.

Thousands of angry and frustrated customers flooded utilities, state regulators and municipal halls with complaints. The Citizens Utility Board asked state regulators to investigate the response to storm-related outages that by late Tuesday still left about 100,000 Illinois customers in the dark.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday declared 49 Illinois counties disaster areas. At least two deaths in the metro East St. Louis region were attributed to the storm, but state officials say they have not received any reports of deaths associated with post-storm power failures.

But many were enduring severe conditions in their frigid homes.

People are frustrated, and they have a right to be. Power won’t be restored to most of Decatur until Friday. Still, people who take out their frustrations on Ameren linemen should be ashamed of themselves (and, yes, I’m including all those idiots in the SJ-R’s comment section for the past few days).

“God’s going to whup you!” she yelled at Steckel as he worked on the alleyway pole that would soon feed the home with power again. “Terrible, terrible service. I am very frustrated, and I’m not the only one frustrated. They are not concerned about the public, they’re not concerned about poor people. People are afraid to leave their homes, afraid someone’s going to break in. That man living over there has cancer.”

Steckel and Jim Pohlman, another Ameren lineman from the Carrollton area, remained silent as Chatman berated them and their employer. They had their own frustrations to deal with.

As darkness fell, they were trying to fix a power line that had been jury-rigged in the first place. Without the right-sized metal sleeves to connect two different-sized lines in the alley behind this house, they were forced to use universal connectors that required extra work. It was akin to having to tie a fish hook onto a line instead of simply snapping one into place with a clip. And they were doing it in freezing temperatures with gloves that were made for work, not comfort.

They’d spent all day in a slow house-to-house slog. They were making good money, but the criticism was tough to ignore.

*** UPDATE *** After initially approving all those nasty comments about Ameren linemen under its Sunday story, the SJ-R has finally hidden them from view.

posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 8:47 am

Comments

If they (the customers) can do better at getting the lines up and the power restored…let them get up in the buckets and try, otherwise give the linemen a break…they have been out there doing this since, when?…Saturday morning? Take it out on the company…not the guy in trenches.

Comment by Siyotanka Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 8:56 am
The linemen are a great bunch of guys who do not deserve to be ragged on. The Company, “Ameren” is squeezing them as much as they are the customers. Remember they are governed by a contract and contract talks are on the horizon.
Gripe at your rep and senator. The general assembly got snookered ten years ago and the utilities are now reaping what they planted. They took the ICC out of the generation picture and now they are going to exploit it. Hence the fake rate hikes. Yes fake. The prices of electricity from the auction are a lot closer to the cost of a peaking unit than some average of the total generation portfolio. How about a better idea say making the holding companies divest their generation?

Comment by Whizbang Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 9:35 am
This is going to become more and more common with utilities deregulation. I hope everybody is looking forward to Cal and Missouri style brownouts. Woohoo!

Deregulate a natural monopoly. Great Idea Springfield!

Comment by jerry Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 9:43 am
The National Guard were dispatched as early as Saturday.

They were largely sent to the Metro East area, but were elsewhere as well. I saw some patrolling the highways looking for stranded motorists.

http://wjbdradio.com/news_view.asp?WEBID=7562
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/breaking_news/16156935.htm

Comment by sam Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 9:45 am
The Decatur area has been serviced for as long as I can remember by Illinois Power. It has only been in the past couple of years that Ameren came in and bought it out, along with CILCO in Peoria and CIPS for central and southern Illinois. I hate to take up for Ameren; however, could it be possible that they inherited a real mess from IP and other power companies who were in dire financial straights? One can assume that the infrastructure they took over was in less than pristine condition.

I was shocked to read in the SJ-R today about the tongue lashing given to a lineman. That is completely uncalled for. I understand the frustration from a cold homeowner who is without power now for 6 days. However, we all need to realize that when you stop these workers and ask questions, it adds time to their job of getting YOUR power restored. These are the front line workers who DO NOT set policy. They just go out and clean up the mess. I sure wouldn’t want their job, no matter how much my overtime check would be.

Comment by Little Egypt Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:15 am
Little E… I was there before IP was bought out by Dynegy and Ameren. When Ameren came in they dummed down IP’s systems and procedures because their system was too antiquated to match up. Pretty much the same thing happened with the Cilco situation. Ameren / UE is a very old school utility that treats customers as rate payers and not customers. A good case is their outreach during the current ice storm. They were asleep at the switch, there used to be systems in place to address the media at once.

Comment by Whizbang Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:25 am
If Illinois had a governor, the National Guard would have been called out days ago. But we don’t. He lives in Chicago and doesn’t give a fig. If he lived or at least worked in the state capital, he would have witnessed the situation and done something. Thanks for nothing Democrats!

We have had a Democratically controlled state for years. Nothing has been done to improve utilities. Where is Pat Quinn? Where is that consumer focused Lt. Governor? After four years, the entire issue surrounding quality utilities has vanished under this administration, instead of being addressed and fixed. It is especially shameful!

Blame all you want over the deregulation of 1997 - Blagojevich and Quinn haven’t be around for an entire term to sit on their fannies and point fingers. One would think being governor should mean something - but under Blagojevich the office has reduced to nothing more than a PR stunt for the evening news.

Just as many upstaters do not understand the severity and frustrations of their fellow citizens with this arrogant administration, it appears they do not understand what it is like to watch one’s home slowly destroyed by neglect during a natural emergency. If this happened in Chicagoland, the response would have been different.

Like Metro East and their abandonment by this administration during last summer’s powerful sweep of storms, central Illinois has been abandoned by this administration during last week’s 30 year ice storms. Blagojevich is only interested in Chicago. Here is more proof.

Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:30 am
Umm… Vanilla…

National Guard was dispatched on Saturday. See Above.

Comment by sam Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:35 am
Ameren definately does not deserve a rate increase after this fiasco. If there were competition in the market, people would now be leaving this company in droves!

Comment by Squideshi Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:35 am
I believe Little Egypt has a point. I saw the meltdown in service from the inside that occured after SBC bought Ameritech a few years ago. The public, press and politicans blamed SBC, but the truth was the infrastructure had been neglected for years because Ameritech wanted to make itself an attractive target for acquisition.

They needed to show strong profits and one way to do that was to accumulate cash and not reinvest it in infrastructure.

After SBC bought Ameritech, they were stunned by the poor condition of the infrastructure and then through some bad luck got hit with a terrible meltdown in service.

I wonder if Ameren is in the same boat with the former Illiois Power infrastructure.

Comment by Old Elephant Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:43 am
“Sam,” there was only a very limited deployment of the Guard over the weekend. From Gov. Blagojevich’s press release:

====Troops from the Illinois National Guard are expected to be in Decatur on Tuesday to begin visiting homes to check on the welfare of residents who have been without power for several days. This mission is similar to one the Illinois National Guard conducted over the weekend in East St. Louis. […]

More than 500 troops from the Illinois Army National Guard helped ensure the safety of citizens on Saturday and Sunday. About 100 Guardsmen were sent to East St. Louis where they conducted more than 800 door-to-door checks on citizens, while others checked for stranded motorists at rest stops and along Interstate highways from the I-80 corridor down to I-70.====

So, yeah, they were out there, but why wait so long to get to Decatur?

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 10:48 am
Rich - I don’t know, why don’t you ask them?

I just wanted to correct your statement that the National Guard didn’t get called out until yesterday since I had personally seen them out on the roads.

Comment by sam Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 11:19 am
I should have been clearer in the post. The Tribune story was datelined “Decatur,” so the National Guard complaint was directed at that town.

Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 11:30 am
I saw George Ryan respond to floods, strikes and tornadoes along with his front office staff, personally. When the governor shows up to do sand bagging (for example) things start to move. Where is our help from other states?

Comment by Shelbyville Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 11:42 am
Want to see the governor be more responsive? One suggestion: Have his staff replace the word “disaster” with the word “fundraiser” in all their reports and discussions.

An example: “Governor, there is a major..um..Fundraiser occurring in Decatur, its pretty widespread and involves a lot of people.”

“Why did’t you say so, fire up the chopper, those people need me!!!”

Comment by Animous Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 12:43 pm
The electricity industry needs to be re-regulated. Derregulation is fundamentally flawed. Consumers are completely captive - there is no real competition and never will be.

There was an excellent story in the November 21 New York Times about the flaws of electric utility deregulation.

I think downstate residents should be blaming the Amren corporation, not the workers. I agree that the state should be making a massive effort to alleviate people’s suffering. Haven’t we learned anything from the heat wave in Chicago back in the 90s and Katrina???

Amren should be held accountable for its performance failures. Mayor Daley did a pretty good job in dealing with Com Ed after they neglected their infrastructure for many years.

Comment by Captain America Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 12:56 pm
People have become so whiney and sissified, they can’t accept that some disasters are beyond man’s ability to immediately resolve. I have seen those linemen working their butts off…and I have seen line trucks from other areas and other states. I am willing to believe that everyone is doing as much as they are capable of. (Except perhaps a few of the chronic complainers who do nothing to help themselves or anyone else.)

Comment by Middle Majority Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 1:03 pm
Missouri sent their National Guard out almost immediately. Illinois’ reaction was similar to the storms in southern IL earlier in the year - too little, too late.

Comment by 4% Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 1:27 pm
Until the proper number of employees are hired and the required funding is allocated for tree trimming, upgrades, and regular maintenance my advice is to buy a generator and have a licensed electrician install it.

Comment by aidanquinn Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 2:30 pm
The hell with those folks that complain. This is an extrodinary circumstance & the crews especially from the contract companies , some from as far away as Mississippi are working hard to restore power. They are working under extremely dangerous conditions & trying conditions and about 16–18 hours per day. And despite these insults being hurled at them by residents & civic leaders alike …they keep working. Winter’s coming folks & it isn’t like it’s the first time it’s snowed or iced in Illinois. Grow up & prepare.

Comment by annon Wednesday, Dec 6, 06 @ 4:27 pm
As a Republican, I was ready to pounce upon Emil Jones’s decision to throw his support behind Commonwealth Edison’s 22% rate increase. Upon reading about Ameren’s ervice performance in central Illinois, I decided that perhaps I had better further reflect upon Emil’s decision to making sure that we had a financially viable electricity provider for the people around the Chicagoland area. Maybe old Emil Jones is correct in his assessment of this electric rate increase.

I was told by a friend of Emil Jones that Emil is no happier than the Illinois citizens are in having the Commonwealth Edison CEO who makes an outrageous salary and benefit package pleading with the Illinois citizens that CWE might go bankrupt if they fail to get this rate increase. This head of Commonwealth Edison corporate officers is making multi-millions in salary and crying, “I feel your pain” as he gently tells you that he will be benevolent by stretching the 22% rate increase over a 5 year period. This guy is a Public Relations idiot and Emil knows that he also makes Emil look like a idiot each time he appears in a CWE commercial on television.

However, I guess the Commonwealth Edison shareholders that allow him to bleed Commonwealth Edison for his exorbitant salary and benefits are the true idiots.

Comment by beowulf Thursday, Dec 7, 06 @ 8:07 am