I'm sure you've heard the proverbial saying "when it rains, it pours", this certainly seems to be the case with storms in Southern Illinois.  Over the past 18 months, your Cooperative has experienced three of the most damaging and devastating storms in your Cooperative's 71-year history.  The most recent storm, which most have referred to as an "inland hurricane", swept through Southern Illinois on May 8th with average sustained winds of 86 mph and gusts estimated to be between 106 mph and 121 mph causing extensive damage to the western and central counties in your Cooperative's territories.

Your Cooperative began receiving calls from members the afternoon of May 8th and by the evening approximately 12,500 members were without power.  At that time, all of the Cooperative employees were working on the restoration process and additional Illinois Cooperative crews and contract crews were called in to assist in the restoration process.

During the course of the storm, all your Cooperative employees along with 107 additional line and forestry personnel from other Illinois Cooperatives and area contractors worked 17-18 hours per day to restore power.  Numerous downed trees and limbs across the roads made the process of traveling to damaged areas very difficult and time consuming.  In order to accelerate the restoration process, a helicopter was utilized to fly the high-voltage transmission lines and report areas of damage so line and forestry personnel could travel directly to the areas that needed repair. 

As the week continued, your Cooperative focused on re-energizing lines that would restore power to as many members as possible.  After restoring power to the main distribution lines, restoration efforts focused on restoring power to devastated secondary lines.  Your Cooperative restored power to the last residence on Friday, May 15th.

Shortly after the storm Illinois' Governor Pat Quinn declared Franklin, Jackson, Randolph, Saline and Williamson counties as state disaster areas.  On June 2nd, Governor Quinn formally requested federal assistance for local governments, businesses and individuals in a letter to President Obama.  On July 2nd, the President declared these counties disaster areas making federal disaster aid available for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the May 2009 storm. Your Cooperative will be working with FEMA representatives over the next several months and may receive up to 75% of the total cost associated with the storm through financial assistance from FEMA.  Although your Cooperative will still incur approximately $650,000 in storm damage expenses that will not be reimbursed, the costs incurred without the FEMA assistance would have been approximately $2.6 million.

Again, I would like to thank all of you as Cooperative members and owners for your understanding of the magnitude of these extreme storms, your patience, your assistance and your thank you letters that have been received.  I would also like to thank all of the hard working and dedicated employees, other Illinois Cooperative employees and contractors who made this restoration possible.

As many of you already know all of my articles normally end with the slogan "We'll keep the lights on for you."  However given the magnitude of this severe storm, my slogan this month will be

"We turned the lights back on for you".