The greater listening area is picking up the pieces at this hour after a dangerous thunderstorm rolled through just before noon today.
Jacksonville/Morgan County Emergency Management Director Phil McCarty spoke with WLDS News this afternoon about the severity of the storm.
“The City of Jacksonville and rural parts of the county have been impacted by what appears to be straight-line winds. Lots of tree limbs down, lots of power lines down, so we’re encouraging people to stay inside. Don’t be out driving around, give us a chance to get it cleaned up, and be very very careful around power lines.
Do not assume that they are inactive, assume that they are all energized. Just please stay off the roads and give us the opportunity to get things cleaned up and made safe because it’s certainly not safe right now in some areas.”
Multiple areas received damage across the listening area with damage to trees and utility lines. Several areas remain without power currently. Ameren Illinois reported more than 40,000 customers were without power immemorially after the storm.
Illinois Rural Electric Cooperative in Winchester is reporting over 2,300 customers without power in its service territory.
The Menard Electric Cooperative says over 2,800 customers in its service territory are seeing an outage.
Illinois Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative says that 116 customers in the Girard service territory are down while 261 are out in Palmyra and 434 are down in Waverly at this hour.
We’ve received some initial reports of two possible fires in the area related to the storm, however, no official report confirming that has been received as of press time.
Just over an inch of rainfall was recorded here at the WLDS/WEAI studios during the storm. We will bring you updates as more information becomes available. WLDS/WEAI is an official reporting station for the National Weather Service.