EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — Thousands of Ameren Illinois customers were briefly without power in Madison County after a car crashed into a pole Tuesday morning near an Ameren substation.
Ameren Illinois spokesperson said a vehicle hit a pole at about 9:20 Tuesday morning near its Wanda substation, which is located in the 3200 block of Old Alton Edwardsville Road, just outside of Edwardsville. The pole and wires were on the ground.
Ameren crews were dispatched to the location and they will assess the damage and safely secure the area before starting their restoration efforts, the spokesperson said.
At 10:30 a.m., about 8,060 customers were without service, according to Ameren's outage map. By 11 a.m., about 2,500 were without service.
By 11:15 a.m., power was restored to all but the 14 customers who were closest to the crash scene, the spokesperson said.
"We hope to have customers restored by 12:45 p.m. today," the spokesperson said. "Our crews will stay on the scene near our Wanda Substation to stabilize the utility pole and make sure it passes through a safety test before we place the wires back onto the pole. Once all repairs are made and safely tested we will reroute power back to this circuit."
Edwardsville Police Chief Michael Fillback said a large portion of the town was affected by the outage, and the police station was operating on a generator.
The Edwardsville Police Department posted on Facebook warning drivers to use caution when approaching any dark traffic signals.
There was another power outage in the Edwardsville area on Saturday evening that left about 600 customers without power.
