Washington County, Illinois, makes disaster declaration after severe storm damage

The Washington County Board has made a disaster declaration in response to the severe thunderstorm that hit the area Friday night.

Strong winds caused power outages, downed trees, road blockages and structure damage across Washington County.

More than 2,500 residents in the Nashville area were still without power on Saturday afternoon, Ameren’s outage map showed.

The county emergency management agency told the community it could take 4-5 days to fully restore power.

Ameren spokesman Tucker Kennedy said in an interview Saturday afternoon that the company was estimating the majority of Nashville customers’ electricity would be on by late Sunday evening, though some may take until Monday.

The storm downed sub-transmission poles in Nashville that feed power to a large number of customers and wire was down in multiple locations, according to Kennedy.