Ameren Missouri Archives

Ameren Missouri announces a COVID-19 clean slate program for utility balances (AUDIO)

June 4, 2020 By Brian Hauswirth

Missouri’s largest electric utility has announced an additional $3.5 million program to help customers pay off their utility bill balances, during the coronavirus outbreak.

Ameren Missouri vice president of customer experience Tara Oglesby says they want to support all of their customers in need.

“Having this money that we have and being able to help customers get a relief from some of these balances that have grown since the pandemic broke out, we feel is just a real opportunity for customers to take action,” Oglesby says.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced this week that 300,000 jobs were lost between March and April, and that the state’s unemployment rate increased from 3.9 to 9.7 percent in April.

The COVID-19 “Clean Slate program” is aimed at assisting Ameren’s most vulnerable customers. It is designed to help them clear their account’s remaining balance, after they pay 25 percent of the current balance.

Ameren Missouri says the program will help about 9,000 households pay off their utility bills.

“We want this money to be able to help everyone as much as possible that is struggling right now, to meet their bills because of COVID-19 or other situations that they’ve ran into,” says Oglesby.

Funding for the program is now available, and customers in a four-person household earning up to $45,850 annually are eligible to apply. You can read more about the program here.

Ameren Missouri has also announced that it’s extending its suspension of service disconnections until at least July 1.

Ameren, which serves 64 of Missouri’s 114 counties, has also donated 1,000 energy-efficient air conditioners and 1,000 four-packs of LED light bulbs to Cooldownstlouis.org and Cooldownmissouri.org.

Ameren says those donations will help senior citizens and at-risk families stay cool and safe this summer.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s full interview with Ameren Missouri vice president of customer experience Tara Oglesby, which was recorded on June 3, 2020:

Ameren workers fixing power problems caused by ice and snow

January 17, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Ameren Missouri employees are hard at work during the winter storm system hitting the Show-Me State. Mike Lewis, superintendent of reliability and support services for Ameren, says workers have been preparing for the ice and snow for the past few days.

Ameren workers fixing power problems caused by ice and snow

“We’ve had a fair amount of experience at this lately,” he says. “So our preparation protocol is getting a lot of practice this year. We just had a very similar situation last Friday, I believe it was.”

Lewis says the electric company is ramping up staffing levels for this storm.

“This does not look like this event particularly is going to cause us a lot of problems,” says Lewis. “But there will be likely some scattered issues – up to a quarter of an inch of ice plus wind on top of that – will cause a few outages. They won’t be widespread. They probably won’t be all that numerous, but we want to be ready to respond with people and property when that happens. The weight of the conductors – once they get laden down with ice and then the weight of tree limbs on top of conductors – can be a real problem for us to be able to put those back in the air. So, I would say an overall ice event does add some time to the restoration process just because it slows travel and it makes it more difficult to get the lines back up.”

Lewis reminds Missourians to be careful.

“First and foremost is, do not approach a downed power line, especially one that’s covered with ice,” says Lewis. “That ice can actually work as an insulator and keep an energized line energized, even though it’s laying down on the ground.”

He says employees will be working in some rough conditions.

“Imagine trying to wear enough clothes to stay warm when the temperatures drop down to single digits or below zero and then doing all that physical work that has to be done to clear trees, set poles, string lines,” he says. “Plus the additional hazards of things falling from trees, tree limbs breaking off due to the weight of the ice.”

Ameren serves 1.2 million customers in 64 Missouri counties and spans the St. Louis metro area and parts of northeast, northwest, southeast and central Missouri.

Construction progressing on $63 million window/door plant in mid-Missouri (AUDIO)

October 29, 2019 By Brian Hauswirth

Framing has been completed on the 200,000 square foot window and door manufacturing plant being built in mid-Missouri’s Eldon, south of Jefferson City.

Quaker Windows and Doors is building a new $63 million plant in central Missouri’s Eldon (October 2019 photo courtesy of Quaker)

State Department of Economic Development (DED) central region manager Michelle Hataway says Freeburg-based Quaker Windows and Doors is expected to create 290 new full-time jobs in Eldon.

“Average wage for the new full-time employees is going to be over $43,000, which is 130 percent of the (Miller) county average wage,” Hataway says.

Hataway says the company is investing $63.3 million in the project, and expects hiring to begin in the spring.

Construction crews have begun to install the roof on the massive plant. Hataway tells Missourinet that Quaker is the talk of Eldon and the region.

“The Chamber of Commerce is extremely excited. When you drive by their new site on (Highway) 52 right there, it says welcome to Eldon. Quaker coming 2020,” says Hataway.

Quaker Windows and Doors began operations in 1949, and was started by Marge and Bud Knoll. The Knoll family was well-known across mid-Missouri. The company is celebrating its 70th anniversary.

Quaker manufactures windows and doors for commercial and residential projects, and has its headquarters and two plants in Freeburg.

Hataway says Quaker will partner with the Eldon Career Center to offer apprenticeships to high school juniors and seniors.

“We (DED) work with a lot of projects across the state and I can tell you that a lot of communities are looking at this to see how they are pioneering the solution to workforce,” Hataway says.

About 1,100 of the 1,900 students in the Eldon School District qualify for free and reduced lunch, and Mayor Larry Henderson has told Missourinet that he wants to create a community with good jobs that kids will stay in and want to come back home to.

Hataway also praises the various partners that DED has worked with on this project, including Ameren Missouri, Miller County, the Eldon Career Center and the state Department of Transportation (MoDOT).

The plant is being built along heavily-traveled Highway 52, and MoDOT has widened the turn lane, making it safer for trucks and employees coming into and out of the facility.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and state Department of Economic Development manager Michelle Hataway, which was recorded on October 22, 2019: