Scott County residents are picking up the pieces this morning after storms caused severe damage Friday afternoon.
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning just before 3:00 pm for Central Scott and Morgan Counties. Minutes later a severe storm tore through the Winchester area knocking down trees and leaving several residents without power.
Mayor Rex McIntire says thankfully no one was injured, however, most of the town suffered damage. “There were a lot of tree limbs down and in some cases damage to houses. My wife and I are pretty sick about it- we lost a big portion of two of our big beautiful trees in the front yard. But fortunately, nobody was hurt that I am aware of.
Our crew was working diligently until I think 9:00 or 9:30 trying to get things cleaned up last night. They are going to be in today working and we’ve also called in a tree service from Greene County to come help us. Laverdiere [Construction] is working on a water main project for us and fortunately, we caught them before they got out of here and they helped get some of the streets opened with some of their equipment too last night.
We’re trying to get streets opened up so everyone can get around and hopefully get a lot more of this mess cleaned up, and so that the power company can get poles reset and the lines back up.”
According to the Illinois Electric Cooperative’s online outage center, power has been restored to all Winchester residents with no active outages currently listed.
McIntire says a number of homes suffered damage in the storm as did the Winchester Post Office which he says will be closed until further notice. “I got a call from the Postmaster and he told me that they would be closed today because of the roof damage. They’re not supposed to go back into the building until the roof is repaired so there will be an outage for those folks. Hopefully, they can get service going again as soon as possible.”
The full extent of the damage to the post office roof was not available as of press time. McIntire says the current employment climate with it being difficult to find good help has hampered clean-up efforts somewhat. However, he says despite that, city crews have been working hard and hope to have the majority of the damage cleaned up soon.
