DANVILLE, Ill. (WAND) — Thousands of residents continue to feel the damage from Thursday's heavy storms. The derecho caused over 200,000 power outages across Central Illinois.
"Today is day five without power, hopefully it'll be restored soon," said Khadijah McCullough, a Danville resident.
As temperatures rise, residents worry about dangerous living conditions. McCullough's main focus was the safety of her children.
"The first day without power my house had reached up to 83. It's just traumatic for me because I'm really not thinking about myself. Because I have four kids, from ages nine to six months. And I had to throw all my food away," said McCullough.
McCullough tells WAND, she tossed over $1,000 worth of food away. Local businesses and stores have done the same since Thursday's storm. McCullough says the outage has caused people to dig through dumpsters to find the tossed food to feed families.
"People were getting in the dumpsters, retrieving food to be able to feed their families," McCullough tells WAND.
The Salvation Army of Vermilion County stepped in to meet the needs in the community. The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Response of both Champaign & Vermilion County was able to help 330 households with 380 sack lunches and 140 snack bags, that's more than 500 meal items served to families in Vermilion County who needed help.
"The next day immediately we saw that there was a great need. Since many restaurants were without power, stores were without power, people were losing their food that short span of time. We saw the need to provide food to the community was great," said Katherine Reid, Lieutenant at The Salvation Army, Vermilion County.
Over 36,000 homes lost power in Vermilion County Thursday. According to the Ameren outage map, there are over 1,000 homes left to go.
"I applaud the linemen that are working. Also, the lineman that came from other states and other cities to come help us in Danville. We thank you so much for that."
Power has been restored to the building that holds McCullough's summer youth program. The program is held at the Youth Mentoring Center behind Mount Olive Baptist Church in Danville on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 10 am to 2 pm. For more information contact Frank McCullough at 217-766-8735 or Edward J. Butler at 217-920-2825.
