5 p.m.

Southwestern Electric crews are responding to outages in Madison County this hour as strong storms push through the region, bringing down trees and power lines. The storms are buffeting the bistate area with lightning and high winds. At 5 p.m., close to 600 Madison County members were without power. Most of the outages were concentrated near Maryville and Bethalto.

Members are cautioned to avoid downed and low-hanging lines, which may be energized or become energized at any time.