RLSH700

IT HIT FAST. IT HIT HARD.
(JULY 20) - Wednesday night's storm leaves a half million people without power and lots of damage in its wake, from Alton to southern Jefferson County. Near hurricane force winds pounded the metro area. Trees and power lines are down. Roofs were blown off of homes and buildings, and some just collapsed. Street lights are down, and heavy newspaper boxes blew around just like the paper it held.

Here are the highlights of some damage reports in the area:
A large portion of the roof of Sumner High School is blown off. Hundreds of tiles litter the pavement below. Winds tore down the big sign at the Casino Queen in East St. Louis, and debris covered the parking lot. The roof and a large section of a hangar are missing at the Bethalto airport. In Cahokia on Route 3, strong winds knocked down trees, blew debris and even the siding ripped off one building. St. Monica and St. Leo Streets are heavily damaged. A man who lives on the corner of Route 3 and St. Monica lost a home and a car. In Dupo, the entire town was hit hard. A vacant trailer on Jesse in Dupo is completely destroyed, but the one next to it wasn't touched, and it was full of people riding out the storm. In East St. Louis, the entire city was without power. One man was injured by downed power lines. There was a lot of damage near 5th and Missouri. The Jackson Hewitt Tax Services building was partially collapsed as well as Chris Hudlin's Insurance across the street.

St. Louis city has a special clean-up hotline you can call to report damage, downed power lines and damage to buildings. You can call 314-231-1212.

MoDOT reports more than 100,000 traffic lights in the metro area are not working because of the massive power outage.

Summer school in the Hazelwood District, St. Lukes Lutheran, Logan College, Miriam School and Catholic Day Care Center are all cancelled. All St. Louis public schools are closed because they have no electricity. At least a dozen other districts also cancelled.
http://www.fox2ktvi.com/

RLSH700

My relatives who live in St. Louis don't have any power today in the humid, hot weather. A wall on a building right next to one of the bridges was was pulled off and feel onto the bridge. Semis were blown over on the bridges. The wind speeds were up to 92 mph last night. The count is supposed to be around 350,000 people do not have power today, but fortuneatly it appears that there were no casualties. Only one person was injured. Thank God!

habeba86

Ya my friend was down there for training for his job and he had to go down to the lobby of the hotel cuz of the storm. They lost power at the hotel for a bit. He said it was pretty bad.

RLSH700

Storms leave St. Louis powerless against heat

July 21, 2006

BY CHERYL WITTENAUER

ST. LOUIS -- The governor sent in the National Guard to evacuate people from their sweltering homes Thursday after storms knocked out power to nearly half a million St. Louis-area households and businesses in the middle of a searing heat wave that has killed at least 17 people across the country.

With forecasters expecting another day of 100-degree heat, utility crews raced to restore electricity, and Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency, granting the mayor's request to send in 250 troops to take people to air-conditioned public buildings and to clear debris.

'We can't overemphasize the danger of this heat,' Mayor Francis Slay said. 'The longer the heat goes on and the power is out, the riskier it is.'

Police used public-address speakers from their squad cars to announce locations of the community centers and other places designated as cooling centers. Volunteers went door to door, checking on people with no power to run fans or air conditioners.

Utility workers urged customers to find a cool place to stay. They warned that power could be out in some areas for three to five days.

Brick houses like furnaces



By midmorning, the temperature was 90, with a predicted high of 103. The region could get some relief on Friday, when the high was expected to drop to 88.

The storms tore through the city a day earlier, ripping off a section of airport roof and dumping it on a highway. Windows were blown out of a hotel restaurant and a press box at baseball's Busch Stadium. At least three buildings collapsed, and more than 30 people were injured.

'I've never seen this many people without power, this much debris, buildings collapsed, lines down,' the mayor said.

By midday, power had been restored to just over 100,000 customers, but new reports of outages kept coming in.

St. Louis-based AmerenUE, the utility serving Missouri and Illinois, said it would restore power to hospitals, nursing homes, water-treatment plants and other 'critical facilities' first.

City Health Director William Kincaid cautioned that the city's older housing, much of it made of red brick, can heat up like furnaces in the summer heat.

The storms also brought heavy rain, hail and 80 mph winds to Illinois on Wednesday night, and roughly 120,000 homes and businesses were without power Thursday.

AP

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-heat21.html

RLSH700

It also went into the Illinois side and hit my mother's hometown (where we have a rental house). Power was and still is out. Broken limbs everywhere.