I was a bit surprised to see the anti-Ameren (local ulitily company) TV ads (link here), which shows an old person, feeling stressed by the potential 40% rate hike of electricity by Ameren. This thing reminds me of the political Ads during campaign season.
Interestingly enough, Ameren is fighting back with its own Ads.
This is what I got from Ameren UE web site. Note the number 1299 only reflects the outage of my neighborhood. From what I heard from radio Ameren tries to restore majority of customers by this evening.
Current Outage
Outage start date/time: Saturday Jan 13, 2007 7:01 AM
Outage status: Order assigned to servicemen or crew
Cause of outage: Tree contact
Estimated restoration time: Tuesday Jan 16, 2007 3:15 PM
Number of customers out: 1299