CHICAGO — The National Weather Service confirmed at least eight tornados touched down across the Midwest in the last two days — with at least one EF-1 tornado touching down in downtown Chicago.
Back-to-back severe storms overnight Sunday and Monday pummeled Chicago and the surrounding region, with tornado sirens wailing through the city.
On Monday night, the NWS issued at least 16 tornado warnings in the region, which is the most issued in a single day since April 2004. The organization estimates it will need several days to survey the reported tornado areas, identifying at least 29 potential paths.
The storms swept through areas surrounding O’Hare and Midway airports, spurring hundreds of travelers to shelter in place. Some, like Justin Smolenski, were stuck on their planes either on the runway or at their gates, as the air traffic control tower was evacuated following emergency alerts warning of tornados, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“It felt like turbulence on the ground,” Smolenski told NBC News. “I guess planes are built better than I thought, because I was just waiting for the thing to just rip apart on the runway. My kids were terrified.”
Strong wind gusts moving as fast as 70 mph, according to ComEd, the utility company, uprooted trees, flipped semi trucks and knocked down industrial power lines in Illinois. Some of the lines draped across the I-55 highway, trapping cars and trucks in between them and forcing a portion of the highway to close.
In Cedar Lake, Indiana, a 44-year-old woman was killed after a tree fell on her home.
Power outages initially affected more than 400,000 customers, with nearly 150,000 still without power Tuesday evening. ComEd said it hopes to get a bulk of power restored by Wednesday but is warning some residents that it may take until Friday.
Brett Schelane, in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, said he’s never lost power in the three years he’s lived in the neighborhood. But after seeing a neighbor’s car nearly destroyed by a fallen tree in Sunday night’s storm and sheltering in the basement with his kids two nights in a row, he’s feeling grateful that the only damage their home faced was a power outage.
“We’ve had bad thunderstorms, but nothing like this. I just happened to look at my phone and saw it said tornado warning so we got down to the basement really quick,” Schelane told NBC News. “We heard loud wind and the sirens going off, so we just waited it out both nights in the basement.”
As cleanup continued across the region Tuesday, a dam in Nashville, Illinois, failed due to the surging rainwater. Local officials ordered an immediate evacuation for about 300 people in the flood zone near the city reservoir.