Editorial column

Thank you for the support as Alliant Energy restored power following the derecho

September 16, 2020

Our purpose is to serve customers and build strong communities, and it guides our work every day. Just over one month ago – following the derecho storm on August 10 – our purpose truly came to life.

The storm brought devastation few have ever seen in the Midwest. More than a quarter of a million of our customers didn’t have power. In some communities, a near-complete rebuild of the electric system was necessary to restore power to all homes and businesses.

We were guided by focusing on our customers and the communities they live in as we immediately began working day and night to restore power as quickly and safely as possible.

In addition to being without power, many customers faced immense challenges and continue to face new adversities. This includes rebuilding damaged homes, losing their trees and ongoing clean-up efforts. But even during this challenging time, our customers remained incredibly grateful and showed their appreciation to our crews as they restored power. By cheering for crews when they arrived in neighborhoods, delivering food and cold drinks, making thank-you cards and signs, and expressing support on social media our customers helped our crews more than you can imagine.

On behalf of Alliant Energy, thank you.

Thank you to our customers for your generosity, patience and understanding. The kindness of Iowans makes me proud to live and work in this great state. 

Thank you to crews from across the country and Canada and the Iowa National Guard. I’m impressed by the massive effort contributed by this team of over 2,000 people to help us restore power as quickly as possible.

Thank you to the many state and community leaders for your determination and leadership to assist with our restoration efforts. Your ongoing efforts to help rebuild communities is critical.

Thank you to the local media. Sharing updates throughout the entire restoration process kept our customers and the communities we serve well-informed. 

Thank you to our employees at Alliant Energy. You showed tremendous teamwork by living one of our values to Make things better. You thought of our customers first and stayed committed to getting the lights back on for customers, despite many of you not having power at your own home.

We all came together to help each other recover from this storm.

We will continue to live our purpose to serve customers and build strong communities by doing all we can to provide safe and reliable service.

Together, we will power through this.

Terry Kouba
Senior Vice President at Alliant Energy and President of the Iowa Utility Company