South Central Transit is not operating in Jefferson County or Mt. Vernon on Friday due to extensive damage to their facility on Route 37 just north of Mt. Vernon from the Thursday night severe weather.
Managing Director Sara Noleman-Hodge says the roof was taken off of a large part of their main building, an attached building used for bus storage is gone, and another maintenance building had all of its doors mangled. The busses stored inside had blown out windows and various levels of damage.
Noleman-Hodge will be visiting the site in daylight to further see the extent of damage and to meet with an insurance adjuster. She is unclear how long it will take them to get back in operation in Jefferson County, which is their second largest county of operation. Noleman-Hodge feels they can probably move some of the operations to Centralia and West Frankfort temporarily.
Noleman-Hodge says she isn’t a weather person but the twisting seen in the damage may indicate there was a tornado involved. Jefferson County was under a tornado warning at the time of the damage.
Noleman-Hodge notes the good news is no one was at the facility when the storm struck around seven pm and there were no injuries.
Jefferson Fire spent several hours assisting with damage in the area on the north side of Mt. Vernon which also included multiple downed power lines and trees. Route 37 was closed down in the area until storm damage could be removed.
DID YOU HAVE STORM DAMAGE? I’m trying to track down storm damage in the area last night. If you have any photos to share, I’d appreciate it. Please include where the damage is located and your name if you want photo credit. We may use some on WJBDradio.com.
