Winds in excess of 100 mph lashed the region Friday, leaving one dead, widespread damage, thousands without electricity, rare city curfews enacted and a massive clean-up ahead.

One person died in Memorial Hospital of Carbondale, the result of a head injury sustained in the storm, Southern Illinois Healthcare spokeswoman Rosslind Rice said. No other information about the victim was available Friday night.

Two weather systems moved through the area midday, the first producing relatively harmless rain, thunder and lightning. The second system brought an early spring mix of strong winds, possible tornadoes and flash floods into the area.

"But no locusts," meteorologist Kelly Hooper of the National Weather Service in Paducah, said Friday during a brief moment of levity on the busy weather day. "There was certainly damage across all counties in Southern Illinois. Electric lines and trees down, windows blown out of homes and cars, structural damage to many, many businesses and residences. There is just a lot of widespread damage."

Particularly hard hit were Williamson and Jackson counties and the communities of Carterville, Herrin, Marion, Johnston City, Carbondale and Murphysboro.

A number of people were trapped in homes and buildings in Jackson and Williamson counties, Hooper said.

Rice noted while hospitals in the area saw storm-related injuries, most of those came after the storm was over, when people were attempting to clean up.

Hooper said NWS teams will swarm the area today to survey the damage so that specific causes for the destruction could be determined.

"We'll be surveying damage, finding wind speeds and intensities. We've had reports of tornadoes and lots of flooding, including flash floods that were short lived," he said. "We are going to have a lot to survey."

Roughly 68,000 customers lost power and more than 100 natural gas leaks were reported in the wake of the storm, Ameren Illinois Utilities spokesman Leigh Morris said.

The company has dispatched 700 workers in a restoration effort, but with at least 11 power transmission lines down, officials have no timeline when the power may be back on, Morris said.

"This is a massive, massive damage that was done," he said.

Ameren is opening a customer service center at the Illinois Centre Mall in Marion near the Sears store this morning. Regular business hours will run from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day until further notice, Morris said.

Clean-up efforts could be hampered by periods of rain today and tomorrow, Hooper said, although no severe weather is anticipated.

becky.malkovich@thesouthern.com / 618-927-5633

caleb.hale@thesouthern.com / 618-351-5090