GRANITE CITY – Following the May 16, 2025, tornadoes in St. Louis and Granite City, Ameren Illinois employees stopped by “Our Daily Show!” with C.J. Nasello to update the public on their clean-up efforts. Paula Nixon and Jason Klein explained that restoring power after a storm is “really a concerted team effort” that starts with communication before the storm even hits. Over 1,000 Ameren employees from across the region converged on the Missouri/Illinois border to help out during the May storm, and Nixon and Klein expressed their appreciation for these workers, their customers, and the community leaders who helped. “You’re in a group of probably 18–20 different departments that we bring together during a storm restoration effort,” Klein said. “Everybody’s working together, doing what they do best to be able to restore our customers as quickly and safely as possible.” Klein’s electric operations teams work around the clock to monitor the weather and alert the rest of the network, starting multiple days ahead of a storm. Nixon, who works in communications, was on the phone with Granite City Mayor Mike Parkinson and members of his team days in advance. Once the storms hit, Nixon said Granite City experienced “total devastation.” In the hours after the tornadoes, Ameren employees were out there working to restore the power. “It was great to look up and see those white line trucks rolling up,” she remembered. “It was great to partner with the communities as well, and they knew we were there.” After a major power outage like what the community experienced on May 16, Klein explained that Ameren works to restore the most important customers and the greatest number of customers as quickly as possible. “We work to restore the most critical customers first. Hospitals, nursing homes, police departments, fire departments. We work to restore those critical life/safety customers first,” he explained. “Then, we work to restore the largest amount of customers we can as quickly and safely as we can. As the process goes on, then we get to the individual houses, individual services, and restore those.” And once the Illinois side was mostly restored, Ameren Illinois employees crossed the river and got to work in Missouri. Many of these employees worked 17–18-hour days in the week following the storms. They took “a little break,” Klein said, then resumed normal operations. Now, Ameren is monitoring the weather as more storms prepare to roll in over the next few days. Nixon stressed the importance of emergency preparedness, and she encouraged people to sign up for text updates, check the official Ameren.com website, and download the app for updates. Nixon and Klein both expressed their appreciation for the residents, community leaders and employees who jump into action when a storm is incoming. They encourage people to reach out at Ameren.com with any questions. “Really, I’d just like to say thank you to our customers,” Klein added. “I want them to know that the Ameren team is out there doing everything we can as quickly and safely as we can to get service restored. But I also know that it’s an inconvenience for our customers, so I really just want to say thank you to them, thank you for their patience, thanks to the community leaders and all the work that they do in coordination with us to get the streets clear so that we can get in there to restore service just as quickly as we can.”
