Storm damage restoration across Knox County

Storm Damage 911 is a free matching service connecting homeowners in all 15 Knox County communities we cover with vetted, licensed, insured storm damage restoration contractors. Knox County sits in the heart of central Illinois, placing it squarely in a high-frequency corridor for tornadoes, large hail, and straight-line wind events.

Knox County sits in the heart of central Illinois, placing it squarely in a high-frequency corridor for tornadoes, large hail, and straight-line wind events. The county has recorded 33 confirmed tornadoes since 1950, including an F3 in 1974 that destroyed roughly 200 homes near Abingdon, and a July 2024 derecho that drove 80-95 mph straight-line winds across the county and embedded an EF-1 tornado west of Elmore. Hailstorms producing golf-ball to baseball-sized stones accompany many of the spring and early-summer supercell systems that track northeast through the Spoon River valley and across the Galesburg plain. Winter brings significant ice storm risk: Knox County lies within the primary national belt for severe freezing rain, and events like the historic March 1978 ice storm - which deposited up to two inches of glaze across a 90-mile swath of central Illinois - have left the county without power for days at a time, with heavy snowfall and blizzard conditions adding additional roof-load and structural stress each season.