Between midnight and noon today, the Galesburg Public Safety Building received 134 calls related to freezing rain and heavy winds.
In addition to snapped branches that destroyed a North Kellogg Street garage and the vehicles inside as well as a trailer on Oren Lane, several fires have kept rescue personnel busy.
Galesburg Fire Chief Tom Simkins says the fire department has been juggling the variety of calls with two separate mutual aid calls due to structure fires in Monmouth and a Hackberry Road structure fire in Galesburg.
Simkins tells WGIL the calls are not uncommon under the circumstances.
“We’ve been getting a lot of downed tree and arcing wire calls,” Simkins says, “which is typical of ice storms. It looks like we got about three-eighths inches of ice on the trees, on the limbs, which is considerable, especially when we’ve got these high winds that we’ve been having.”
Additional information on the structure fires was not immediately available.
According to Ameren’s outage statistics, six percent of Knox County residents are still without. About 96 percent of Henderson county was without power after noon; that number is now down to about 50 percent.
The weather prompted the American Red Cross to issue a statement urging residents in Central and Southern Illinois to prepare for potential flooding and winter conditions, including ice and winds.
Their recommendations include keeping a three-day supply of water and nonperishable food, flashlights, batteries and medications .
The Abingdon Police Department says Illinois Route 41 between Knox Highway 26 and Knox Highway 5 — between Abingdon and Galesburg — is closed due to downed power poles.
Rain and wind is expected to die down into the night with precipitation continuing into the early morning.
