ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County is under a state of emergency after severe storms caused significant damage and power outages across there.

St. Louis County Executive Sam Page issued the emergency declaration late Friday night. Page said he has been in contact with Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe to coordinate state assistance with the storm damage.

St. Louis County Director of Emergency Management Michele Ryan said damage was widespread, but some areas were hit harder than others.

“We have some reports of sort of scattered damage in south and central St. Louis County. The bulk of the damage seems to be in the Black Jack, Bridgeton, Florissant area, Hazelwood,” she said. “We know there was probably a tornado that touched down in Chesterfield as well, so we will be looking there as well.”

Ryan said the agency’s current priority is restoring utilities that were knocked out by Friday’s storm. She said they are providing information and support to Ameren to help speed up the restoration process.

If you see a downed power line, do not approach it. Instead, you are asked to call Ameren to report it. If you see any unsafe conditions, call your local police department.

In addition to utility outages, storm debris is blocking some roadways in the county. Ryan said the county’s streets department and municipal crews are working to clear roads as quickly and safely as possible. 

Ryan said they activated the Emergency Operations Center at 6 p.m. on Friday, and crews were out all night helping residents stay safe. She said, the EOC allows them to track storms and damage in real-time and distribute that information to first responders who need it.

The next step for residents will be storm damage assessment. Ryan said they have requested state damage assessment teams, which are expected to be deployed next week, but they need help determining where to send that help.

“We have some idea where the majority of the damage is, but we need to know if folks have damage,” she said in a Saturday morning press conference.

Ryan said if you have any damage, from minor to major, call 211 to report it. That information is then provided to the county EMA and used to deploy assessment teams.