At least five tornadoes touched down in the Chicago area Monday, including an EF-1 tornado on the city’s Near West Side, as the region was battered by storms for a second straight night, the National Weather Service said.
The weather service also confirmed tornadoes near Channahon, Oswego, and Bridgeview as well as Crown Point, Indiana. This total will likely grow as the weather service continues investigating storm damage.
About 143,000 customers were still without power late Tuesday afternoon, and ComEd said some customers might not be reconnected until Friday. At its peak, more than 220,000 customers were without power.
While few storm-related injuries were reported, a woman in Northwest Indiana died after a tree fell on her Cedar Lake home. Laura Nagel, 44, was pronounced dead and identified by her family after storms ripped through the area Monday night, the Lake County, Indiana, Coroner’s Office said.
The weather service determined the storm system was a derecho, which is a system that continues for at least 250 miles and is characterized by heavy winds. Throughout the Chicago area, winds were consistently recorded at 50-70 mph, while the strongest gust was a 75 mph burst near O’Hare Airport, meteorologist Zachary Yack said.
“[Derechos are] somewhat rare,” Yack said. “I know we’ve had a couple of them this year in other parts of the country. We’ve had them in our area in the past.”
The last time the area saw gusts this strong was in June 2021, when winds topped out at 84 mph, Yack said.
Daniel Ortiz heard a loud thud outside his West Town home as the storm began tearing through the Chicago area. He didn’t think much of it but looked outside to find a piece of his neighbor’s roof had crashed into his front gate.
After the storm passed, Ortiz and his neighbors emerged from their homes to find a level of destruction that seemed unfathomable. In his 60 years of living in Chicago, Ortiz had never seen anything like it.
“We’ve had branches, some little twigs, whatever but nothing like this … it was fierce,” Ortiz told the Sun-Times on Tuesday as he worked to clean debris around his home.
Ortiz’s intersection of Hoyne Avenue and Huron Street was blocked by downed trees in multiple directions. To his relief, no one was injured but dozens of cars had windows shattered and front yards were filled with broken trees.
Neighbors said it felt like a storm traveled straight through Huron Street while blocks directly north and south seemed untouched.
“There was a moment last night where it felt like the wind was circulating around my house,” Andrea Smith said Tuesday while standing outside her home on Huron.
The Chicago Fire Department confirmed only one injury related to the storms, despite reporting a number of downed trees, power lines and porches.
A woman in her mid-40s was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in serious condition with a head injury after a tree fell on her car in the 1700 block of North Austin Avenue, fire department spokesperson Larry Langford said.
Near Channahon, several vehicles were tangled in high-tension elecrtric wires that fell onto Interstate 55 near Arsenal Road, Illinois State Police said. One person was taken to a nearby hospital with injuries related to the downed wires. The road road was closed and is not expected to open for another 12-24 hours, police said.
Metra reported several delays Tuesday morning related to storms. Scheduled service may be changed or reduced as the day goes on, an alert on the Metra website said. The Metra Electric line was affected by wire problems, running 15-20 minutes late, according to alerts.
The weather service is investigating more than 25 possible tornadoes, though it’s unlikely the number of confirmed twisters will end up that high.
The Romeoville office of the National Weather Service at one point took shelter from a tornado themselves, putting responsibilities on another nearby office.
We had to seek shelter from the tornado but are spinning back up after handing off warning responsibilities to @NWSGaylord temporarily. Continue to take these warnings seriously! Multiple tornadoes have been reported along this line of storms moving through the Chicago metro!!
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) July 16, 2024
Ahead of Monday night’s storms, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago asked residents to reduce their water use. Limiting the amount of water used in a household helps prevent flooding and protects the water quality, according to the district.
Severe storms Sunday night also led to two tornadoes touching down in Chicago, according to the National Weather Service.
The first started near Midway International Airport at 10:31 p.m. Sunday, blowing through Bronzeville with peak winds of 80 mph. The strong winds moved a plane on the tarmac. About 10:45 p.m. a Southwest aircraft, while stationary and empty, “made contact with a jet bridge,” according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.
Shortly after, a second EF-0 tornado formed in Englewood and blew east through Jackson Park.
Here is some more info on the two tornadoes that we confirmed in the city of Chicago from yesterday’s storms. Additional information on other tornadoes that occurred yesterday will be posted later this week as we are now shifting our full attention to this evening’s storms. #ilwx pic.twitter.com/KTdQWfJsxx
— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) July 15, 2024
Todd West left his home on Huron on Monday night to find two of his family’s cars crushed by trees.
West was sheltering in his basement with his children Monday night when he heard the tree snap out front.
“This feels like it was a tornado because of the way the tree broke up at the top,” West said. “It’s a little weird the way it snapped.”
West opted to wait for city crews to come through and clean up the street, though none had been seen as of noon. Other neighbors took matters into their own hands.
A snapped branch was left dangling over Michael Anderson’s work truck on Hoyne Avenue. Anderson works in gardening and used his tools to cut down the branch himself.
“It’s weird how it’s just like a couple of blocks,” Anderson said. “I own a shop a couple blocks away and I was like ‘Oh my god what’s it going to be like,’ but it’s completely fine.”
Mel Becker-Solomon and her husband, Jeremy, said their home just a block south was spared from the damage, but they walked over to Huron to help with clean-up Tuesday.
The couple and their 8-year-old son, Ezra, began breaking down branches blocking intersections and sweeping up debris in the street.
“We’re just cleaning up as well as we can,” Jeremy Solomon said.
“People put a sign up to be like tree down but hundreds of people have come through anyway.”
Across from the family, Juan Martinez was taking in the damage to his recently paid off 1996 Volvo sedan. A large branch smashed through both the side and back windows and crushed the top of his car.
Martinez had called his insurance company Tuesday but was not particularly optimistic.
“Liability insurance, some comprehensive, 1996 Volvo, no car payment, I was like, ‘Great,’ and then this,” Martinez said. “I’m not sure how much I’ll get … especially given the age of the vehicle.”
