Residents in Nashville, Illinois, were told to evacuate Tuesday after local emergency officials warned of the ‘imminent failure’ of a nearby dam.

Heavy rainfall hit the area overnight and flooded the dam.

“Earlier this afternoon, emergency officials issued urgent evacuation orders due to the imminent failure of the reservoir dam in Nashville, Illinois. Intense thunderstorms have caused extremely heavy downpours, with 6-8 inches of rain already fallen and more on the way, leading to significant flooding. The dam has experienced two failures, prompting officials to urge residents in nearly 300 homes to evacuate,” Rawsalerts wrote.

“Multiple homes and roads are inundated, vehicles are stranded by high water, and rivers are overflowing. If you are in the area or know someone who is, tell them to immediately move to higher ground,” the post added.

Per USA TODAY:

Evacuations were completed by early afternoon in the small city, located in Washington County about 55 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, according to the county’s Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Alex Haglund. He said 299 phones in the area received the evacuation order and about 200 residents fled their homes.

As of 1 p.m. CT, the region had received more than 6 inches of rain, Haglund said.

“The area evacuated is in a flood drainage path extended to the south and west from the reservoir,” Haglund said.

The agency initially published a post on Facebook Tuesday morning warning residents that “failure” of the Nashville City Reservoir Dam was imminent and urging affected residents to “evacuate now!”

Zero Hedge reports:

Earlier Tuesday, Alex Haglund with the Washington County management agency told local news outlet KSDK-TV that a secondary dam on the reservoir had failed, which was also confirmed by the Emergency Management Agency in its statement.

The Nashville population stood at about 3,100 people during the last census.

The rain that was part of a series of storms that swept across the state was part of a larger system that led to tornadoes and tornado warnings in other areas, including Des Moines, Iowa, as well as the Chicago area.

By 12 p.m. local time, some 215,000 customers were without power in Illinois, according to PowerOutage.us.

The Chicago Fire Department said on the social media site X that there was only one serious injury in the nation’s third-largest city, a person who was hurt when a tree fell on a car. Also, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport reported 81 flight cancellations as of Tuesday morning, and Midway International Airport reported eight cancellations.

 

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