Danville area trying to recover in storm's aftermath

Jun. 30—It wasn't business as usual for a lot of area residents who Friday were facing home, yard and business cleanups after Thursday's severe thunderstorms swept over east-central Illinois.

Many residents and businesses still didn't have power on Friday, including OSF Medical Group offices on Logan Avenue, one of the streets hit hard in Danville by fallen trees and power lines.

Students, including those who were to have summer school classes at Danville High School, also had the day off due to phone and network server outages.

Danville District 118 Buildings and Grounds Director Skip Truex said they were cleaning up a lot of tree debris around the school district buildings.

"We've had a lot of trees," Truex said, calling it a "messy" event.

Rooftop air conditioning equipment also was turned over by Thursday's winds, he reported.

Ameren Illinois midday on Friday reported progress was being made on power restoration.

Ameren crews worked throughout Thursday evening and Friday morning to begin restoration efforts to thousands of power outages throughout central Illinois. As of 8 a.m. Friday, crews had successfully restored more than 70,000 customers, or 45 percent of the overall outage area.

—The storm lines left more than a 500-mile stretch of widespread and unique incidents of damage across several Midwest states and caused more than 180,000 Ameren Illinois customers to lose power throughout the mid-section of the Ameren service territory. Hail, high winds and reported tornadoes contributed to the electric infrastructure damage. Preliminary wind maps show winds exceeding 85 miles per hour in some locations.

—Ameren representatives are coordinating with local and state officials and agencies, working together to get service restored. Customers are encouraged to sign up for alerts for specific restoration details related to their outage.

—Ameren said it deployed all available internal resources. Plus, more than 1,000 outside contractor personnel from 20 different utility resources are engaged or headed to assist. Crews will work until customer service is restored.

—As of 8 a.m. Friday, there were more than 650 poles (sub-transmission and distribution) damaged or destroyed.

Due to the scope of damage and the significant number of outages throughout the Ameren Illinois service territory, many customers were told to expect to be without power through Saturday evening. Some could have their power restored sooner and other outages could last longer.

Ameren expected to begin providing estimated restoration times to individual customers later Friday afternoon and into Friday evening.

The utility offered the following customer safety tips:

—Call Ameren Illinois at 1-800-755-5000 as soon as possible to report a downed line, natural gas odor, or outage.

—Residents are reminded to stay away from downed power lines because these lines may still be energized. Stay away from brush, shrubs and fallen trees that may be hiding these lines.

Real-time outage details and safety information are available at Ameren.com/outage.

Ameren advised there were almost 33,000 customers out of 38,000 in Vermilion County without power after the storms.

Friday morning that number was down to 22,155.

"Ameren has called in extra crews and stationed a materials truck in Danville to work on restoring power. Thus far they do not have an estimate on total restoration, however areas are slowly but surely getting power back," according to Russell Rudd, director with Vermilion County Emergency Management.

Danville debris collection

The Danville Public Works Department announced that due to the severe weather conditions on Thursday, June 29, there will be a special storm debris collection event. Collection of storm debris will begin on Monday, July 3, with the final collection day being Thursday, July 13. Limbs, branches and storm-related debris will be collected. Residents must call public works at 217-431-2288 to report addresses with storm debris for collection.

The city will not collect debris if the address has not been called in.

All materials are to be cut to lengths no longer than four feet and placed at the curb for collection. Smaller materials are to be bundled with twine and may be placed in the same location. Paper yard waste bags may be used for this special collection and should be placed in the same manner. No single limbs, bags or bundles may exceed 50 pounds.

The public works department said it appreciates residents' cooperation and assistance with this special collection. Questions may be directed to Danville Public Works at 217-431-2288.

Danville Parks

The City of Danville Parks Department announced that all city parks are closed until further notice. The storm left large amounts of debris and fallen trees in most parks making these areas potentially dangerous for residents.

With Public Works' storm debris removal operations currently focusing on making city roads safe for travel, an assessment of the potential hazards from storm debris in all city parks is not able to be done at this time.

At this time, city officials say they are unsure when the parks will reopen to residents. A future press release will be made to open all city parks after hazards are assessed and eliminated.

National Weather Service information

Thursday's storm is what the National Weather Service is calling a derecho event.

Several rounds of severe storms moved through central and southeast Illinois on Thursday. The first round occurred before sunrise and continued into the mid-morning hours, with supercell thunderstorms that produced large hail and heavy rainfall from Peoria into parts of eastern Illinois, including 3.25" hail in Tuscola.

By later in the morning, a large bow echo/derecho that initiated from overnight storms over the central Plains entered west-central Illinois, spreading east-southeast through the entire forecast area by late afternoon hours. Widespread, significant straight-line wind damage was reported as well as a few tornadoes.

This resulted in a substantial amount of tree damage, crop damage and extensive power outages. The derecho continued to track southeast of here into central and southern Indiana and points beyond, producing more wind damage. The third and final round was more localized and occurred south of I-70 during the early evening hours when a few supercell thunderstorms produced large hail up to 2 inches in parts of Clay and Richland counties, according to the National Weather Service.

A derecho is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms variously known as bow echoes, squall lines, or quasi-linear convective systems. By definition, if the wind damage swath extends more than 240 miles and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph or greater along most of its length, then the event is classified a derecho.

Rudd said Vermilion County experienced high winds of 70-plus mph throughout the entire county.

"The most significant damage is from trees and power lines down. All the county, city and village public works departments worked into late last night just clearing debris from roadways so emergency services personnel could get through. This morning they are starting the clean up of that debris," according to Rudd.

Rudd said they didn't receive any reports of fatalities or injuries connected to the storm.

There was a lot of tree damage at the Camp Drake Boy Scout Camp in Oakwood. Fortunately all the campers and staff made it into a shelter building. A tree fell on the roof of the shelter and they were trapped inside until the fire department responded, but no one was injured, Rudd said.