Thousands remained without power Sunday afternoon following weekend storms in southwest IL
Thousands of metro-east residents remained without electrical service Sunday afternoon after three rounds of weekend thunderstorms with high winds swept through parts of the region, snapping trees, downing power lines and damaging homes.
Here’s a sampling of areas that were without electricity service as of 9:50 a.m., according to the latest version of the Ameren Illinois Outage Map (these include customers outside of towns listed):
Collinsville area: 2,771 customers
Granite City area: 837
Columbia area: About 3,000
Fayetteville area: About 900
Nashville area: 2,160
You can get more details and drill down to specific areas with outages on the map.
Total customers without service through the Ameren Illinois customer service area early Sunday afternoon was 53,662, mostly through southern and central Illinois. Central Illinois also was struck by a round of storms late last week.
The weekend storms were Friday night, Saturday afternoon and early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
Hardest hit areas during the Friday storm in St. Clair County were in the southern part of the county, including Millstadt, Smithton, Freeburg, New Athens and St. Libory, according to Herb Simmons, director of the county emergency management agency. The initial storm also hit East St. Louis hard.
The roof was blown off of an apartment complex in the 1600 block of State Street in East St. Louis, according to Simmons. He said displaced families were seeking shelter at City Hall. A cooling site was also established at the public library, 5700 State Street, according to the emergency management agency.
On Sunday, the county emergency management agency announced that people still without power in the East St. Louis area can visit the Clyde Jordan Senior citizens building at 6800 State Street from 9am until 5pm., where people can get a meal and relax.
Washington County also was hard hit by the first storm. Its county board issued a disaster declaration as a result.
The National Weather Service in St. Louis appealed to the public to report any wind damages or hail from the storms that moved through the region on Saturday between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. and between 10 p.m. Saturday and 2 a.m. today.
This story was originally published July 2, 2023 at 10:21 AM.