UPDATED at 8:50 a.m. with account from business owner and new photos
MOUNT OLIVE • Winds that ripped through Mount Olive's Main Street on Monday night destroyed four commercial buildings in the downtown business district and damaged at least 10 other properties, authorities say.
No injuries were reported. The storm hit at about 10:35 p.m. Monday.
James W. Pitchford, coordinator for the Macoupin County Emergency Management Agency, said the National Weather Service will be sending someone to survey the damage at about 10:30 a.m. today.
That survey team will determine if the storm was a tornado, but Pitchford said he doesn't believe it was a twister. Based on the damage he saw at daybreak today, Pitchford said he thinks it was straight-line winds that moved from west to east.
The damaged buildings include a home that is about 150 years old that lost its roof, and two apartment buildings. Behind the brand new fire department, the roof and walls are missing from a steel- and wood-frame shed that was being used to store equipment.
"Downtown, some two-story brick buildings, the facades were ripped off them," Pitchford said.
The business district is on Route 138, which becomes Main Street in Mount Olive. The city has a population of about 2,100.
The second floor of Mel's Place tavern on Main Street was wiped out. A piece of brick is sticking up and one new window and two bathrooms remain. The owner had been rehabbing the top floor to use one day as a banquet center.
Melba Bick, owner of the tavern, said she got a text from her bartender last night about 10 p.m., saying there were no customers and the weather was getting bad.
"Thank God I told her, just close it down and go home," Bick said. "Their safety is more important than anything. I'm glad no one was in there."
Bick said she bought the bar a year ago this Friday. When she got a call Monday night that the storm had hit her place, she drove downtown from her home three blocks away to see the damage.
"We kept having to turn around because trees were down, electrical lines were in the road and it was flooded," she said. "It was bad. It really ripped through here."
A two-story home to the right of the bar was damaged. Bick was glad to see the couple and their daughter unhurt. "My heart goes out to them," she said. "The back part of the house, the roof, is just gone. It's laying out front."
David Schoen, assistant fire chief for the Mount Olive Fire Protection District, said the path of destruction stretches for about a half-mile and is about two blocks wide.
"It was kinda hit and miss," he said.
At the fire house, on the west side of town, the force of the winds pushed a bay door in and bucked others from the pressure. Part of the storage shed behind the fire house blew into the back roof of a bank. That bank, First National Bank of Staunton in Mount Olive, will be closed today, Schoen said.
Schoen said the firefighters are volunteers and we at home when the storm blew through. "We heard loud noises and all the windows rattled and shook," he said.
Firefighters and police went door-to-door to check on everyone's safety. No one needed to be rescued. Staunton fire, Macoupin County sheriff's and Illinois State Police helped check on residents. The Mount Olive police force closed the city until about 3:30 a.m. today, Schoen said.
Pitchford said the first sign of winds coming at Mount Olive was when a roof was blown off an IGA store in Staunton on Monday night, shortly before the damage to Mount Olive's business district. As of 7 a.m., more than 800 Ameren customers in Macoupin County were without power.
Officials with the National Weather Service office in St. Louis said they plan to send a survey team to Mount Olive and Hannibal, Mo., the only other spot in their coverage area that might have been hit by a tornado during Monday night's storms.
In Hannibal, the storm snapped several large trees snapped, destroyed two machine sheds near Highway MM and damaged some buildings downtown. The storms across eastern Missouri and southern Illinois were marked by hail and high winds.
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Emergency Event 20130520AIC
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