Ameren Illinois officials say it is not clear what caused a two and a half hour power outage to most of Salem early Tuesday morning during heavy thunderstorm activity.
The outage began at 3:12 am and ended at 5:50 am. It impacted 3,000 Salem residents.
An Ameren official say after crews patrolled the line and could find no problem, they attempted to close the open breaker and it held. Lightning may have been the culprit.
The Ameren outage also knocked out some Tri-County Electric customers.
The storm system spawned tornado warnings in Jefferson and Wayne Counties as well as severe thunderstorm warnings in Jefferson, Washington and Wayne Counties, but a check of area officials showed no damage reports.
The storm dumped 1.3 inches of rain at the Salem Water Treatment Plant and 1.12 inches at the Centralia Water Treatment Plant. Raccoon Lake is just 2.6 inches below the spillway after the latest rain and one gate is cracked open to get rid of excess water.
Patoka Township Road Commissioner Earl Shipley reports flooding in the Kaskaskia River bottoms have flooded low lying crossings on North Fork and Flat Creek.
