Southern Ill. outages continue shrinking

CARBONDALE -- The number of southern Illinois homes and businesses without electricity since last week's deadly storms continues to shrink. But more bad weather is expected.

St. Louis-based utility Ameren says about 11,700 are still without power five days after the storms raked the region. That's down from a peak of about 68,000 customers who were left in the dark.

Ameren says some outages would persist until Thursday and Friday.

Gov. Pat Quinn toured the devastation Tuesday and doubled to six the number of counties he's declared state disaster areas. Franklin, Gallatin, Jackson, Randolph, Saline and Williamson counties now have that designation, meaning they'll have state services available to them.

Weather forecasters say more potential storms are headed to the region.