Vast online retailer

While most consumers know Amazon as a vast online retailer, the company as well leases its vast computer data centers to other companies. Essentially, it is a computing-power landlord to a variety of tenants ranging from Netflix to the Foursquare social networking site. Among the clients is Outagemaps.com, the vendor that Kenergy hired to provide the research for reporting local power outages.

The peak of Friday night power outages occurred around midnight when more than 980 rural homes and businesses were without electricity, including 533 in Henderson County, 181 in Union County and 237 in Webster County, with scattered outages in Daviess County and elsewhere.

Kenergy spokeswoman Renee Beasley Jones said the outages might have been even worse had it not been for the vigorous tree-trimming nearly power lines the company has pursued the past two years as then as the extensive reconstruction and strengthening of its distribution network following the historic ice storm in January 2009.