Here is the latest rundown from yesterday's storms:
Confirmed Damage: Washington (100's of homes destroyed and damaged), Pekin (several homes damaged), Brookport (50 trailers destroyed), New Minden, East Peoria, Coal City, (Gifford: 200 hundred homes damaged, 20 totally destroyed)
Current Confirmed deaths: 1 in Washington, 2 in New Minden, 3 in Brookport. Search and rescue is still ongoing in Washington, Gifford and Brookport.
Other damage reported (but not confirmed): Petersburg (mostly trees and power lines) Pontiac, Minock, Altamont, Centralia, Roanoke, west of Tuscola, Westville (trees and power lines). Danville (power outage, down trees, some minor damage in town). Minor tree damage and down power lines in many areas. Highest power outage is in Vermilion County. There was a touchdown near Fairfield, but it basically did some minor damage in an landfill area.
Current Plans:
Many areas are not accessible and roadblocks are set up and manned by State Police and National Guard. It could be 48 hours or longer before we can get into some of the heavily damaged areas.
When we know a timeline when volunteers are able to get into the areas and where volunteers are to report, we will notify everyone of that information. Our trained Early Response Teams have received notification that they can go to work in their local areas as soon as they can get into the areas, but an invitation will be issued before they go into other areas of the conference to work. We will be identifying 1 to 2 key ERT trained people in each district to be responsible for mobilization of teams.
I have heard that Fairview Christ UMC ERT trained members are already deployed in their area.
Most of the damage in Washington was just south of Crossroads UMC. The church has minor roof damage only in one area of the building. Crossroads UMC has been set up as a shelter for residents. A meeting for the Tazewell County Disaster Response will be held at the Red Cross today with agencies involved in a coordinated response. Bunny Wolfe, Illinois River District Disaster Response Coordinator Judy Doyle and Illinois River DS Mary Kathryn Pearce will be attending.
Steve Schoeffel will be on the VOAD (VOLUNTEER ORGANIZATIONS ACTIVE IN DISASTER) Monday for the state response and will probably get information on when FEMA may show up in these areas.
Iroquois River District Superintendent In-Sook Hwang and Ron Monroe, who is experienced in disaster response, will be in Gifford today. More than 30 homes were destroyed in Gifford. No confirmed deaths as of yet, 2 people injured, 20 homes completely destroyed, 200 homes damaged. County Health Care and Rehab Center in Gifford is a shelter. Power is still out in Gifford, so a generator is being run at the Lutheran Church in Gifford where soup and sandwiches will be served starting today. Because of the potential of downed power lines and gas leaks, the town is closed to general access.
Rantoul First UMC has opened an emergency drop-off center in the Gathering Place, which opened at 8 a.m. The church has already received food, water, cleaning and hygiene supplies, diapers, toilet paper, blankets and clothing as people are sharing through social media that they can bring stuff to us. They have also received some cash donations that we will be sure goes directly to providing material needs of the people as supervised by the pastors there and/or local officials.
Coal City: Coal City UMC is acting as a shelter and their Early Response Team will probably be in the southern part of Coal City today working in clean up already.
Brookport: Cache River District Superintendent Roger Russell was in Metropolis when the storm hit and tried to get into Brookport Sunday, but the road was blocked. Ed Hoke and Pete Ryan will be working with Massac County EMT to manage volunteer registration in Brookport when volunteers can get into the area.
Havana: IGRC Disaster Response Coordinator Ken Minor has a report of damage in Havana.
Tuscola: Some homes were destroyed on north side of Tuscola. Church and parsonage is o.k.
We will continue to update this thread as additional information is available.
Right now, there are two things that you can encourage people in response:
We will provide contact information as we receive it.