A tornado ripped through the northwest edge of Jacksonville over the noon, causing substantial damage to a baseball and softball complex next to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital.
While there were reports of damage to roofs and downed limbs and power lines, the most severe damage occurred at Future Champions facility on Walnut.
One of the owners, Kristin Jamison told us two of their workers have just finished work on the fields and were headed back to the restaurant across Walnut when the tornado blew through.
They took shelter inside the facility and were not hurt. In fact, there has not been any reports of injuries from the storm so far.
Parts of the metal roofing from the restaurant and storage building, insulation and other debris blew across the street onto the complex. One set of bleachers tumbled from diamonds next to Walnut and into right field at the main ball field.
WLDS-WEAI lost power, and went off the air shortly after noon. We were back on about 7:30 PM. Most of the city’s east side beyond Diamond is without power. Ameren says about 11-thousand customers were without power, which is 76-percent of the Morgan County population. Nearly all power was restored by early this morning with the exception of spot outages. They reported 20 power poles downed or damaged in Jacksonville, and called in extra crews to help with repairs.
Old route 36 from Merritt Lane to Lynnville is closed until further notice due to power pole replacements.
The outage snarled several intersections on Morton, and several businesses along Miracle Mile are without power. We also have reports that the ATT tower north of Jacksonville was toppled in the storm.
Jacksonville Memorial Hospital began transferring patients to other hospitals late this afternoon. Spokesperson Anne Davis says the generator used to power the building is powering essential medical equipment but doesn’t support the chiller plant for air conditioning. The emergency department will remain open, but critical inpatients were moved out for their comfort and safety.
At one point, there was a report of a fire at Jacksonville High School. But, that turned out to be a false alarm.
There were multiple reports of funnel clouds and several unconfirmed reports of tornadoes on the ground.
Amateur storm chasers got plenty of footage of the storm activity.
There are reports that the Pointe senior housing complex off Westgate had several windows blown out but no injuries. There was a power pole carrying electric lines snapped and left dangling at the railroad overpass on Westgate.
Morgan County emergency services director Phil McCarty says there was no damage to the Jacksonville Memorial Hospital. He says he has heard of no injuries, and the National Weather Service will make the call on tornadoes, how many and how severe sometime today.