A wind warning for northern Illinois expired this evening after two days of high winds, with gusts today topping 50 mph through much of northern Illinois and northern Indiana.
The warning was in effect today until 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Although less damage was reported today, gusts today in the Chicago area topped out at 61 mph at Waukegan and Gary, and 55 mph at O'Hare, Midway and Aurora airports.
In the city and suburbs, several fires, including extra-alarm blazes in the Lincoln Park and Back of the Yards neighborhoods, were exacerbated by high winds. South Bend, Ind., officials and officials at the University of Notre Dame were investigating whether high winds might have contributed to an accident that killed Notre Dame junior Declan Sullivan.
Due to continued high winds today, airlines at O'Hare International Airport canceled more than 200 flights, officials said.
On Tuesday, a massive storm with wind gusts up to 81 mph howled across the nation's midsection -- including the Chicago area--snapping trees and power lines, ripping off roofs, delaying flights and soaking commuters hunched under crumpled umbrellas.
The road is blocked at the corner of Will Center Road and Beecher Blacktop Road in Peotone where high winds damaged homes and knocked over power lines Tuesday. (Photo for Chicago Tribune by Warren Skalski)
The National Weather Service confirmed three area tornadoes, and on Wednesday confirmed a fourth tornado touched down about 3 miles east-southeast of Ashton, Ill., about 12 miles east of Dixon near Interstate 88 at 5:41 a.m. Tuesday. One touched down near Peotone in Will County, ripping off the roof of a home and slightly injuring two teenage brothers. Another hit Elburn, which sustained significant wind damage that blocked some roads. A third tornado, of the weakest classification, came down briefly in rural Porter County, Ind. The Ashton tornado damaged some outbuildings and ripped the roof off others; it was estimated to have had winds of about 95 mph.
(See how strong the wind gusts were in your community by clicking here.)About 200,000 Commonwealth Edison customers were left without power, although those numbers were down sharply this morning, with the utility reporting only 3,500 outages as of about 8 a.m.
The winds tapered off Tuesday night, but were forecast to pick up again Wednesday before the system moves out of the area Wednesday night, according to the weather service. The high wind warning for northeast Illinois was canceled just before 7:15 p.m., but a wind advisory is in effect for northeastern Illinois until 7 p.m. Wednesday.
In Will County, the tornado's path was about a mile long and 200 yards wide, according to the weather service, which listed the tornado as a category EF2 on a scale that goes from 0 to 5. The tornado hit around 7:30 a.m. and tore the roof off a two--story home on Will Center Road between Beecher and Peotone. Kathy Webb, the sister of one of the owners, said her 16-year-old nephew Jesse Schroeder was cut on his face and would get stitches to his finger.
"He was standing on the porch and he was pulled back into the house through the glass door," Webb said.
Justin Schroeder, 17, said he was surprised by the force of the storm.
"There was a sound of the wind, then there was a tiny whistle and everything exploding around. Glass was exploding everywhere, it was like a bomb went off," said Schroeder. "I just thought it had blown out a couple of windows then I walked around the house and saw what had happened."
In Elburn, two barns and a grain bin were destroyed by the tornado, and a telephone pole snapped at one farmstead, according to the weather service. A house and two other farmsteads sustained minor damage.
In Lake Villa, a woman was injured when a dead tree branch fell about 65 to 70 feet, crashed through the windshield of her car and impaled her, police said.
The incident happened near the intersection of Grand Avenue and Deep Lake Road in Lindenhurst about 7:30 a.m., police said. Lindenhurst Police Cmdr. Kevin Klahs said the 41-year-old woman was driving a Smart car east on Grand Avenue when wind caused the branch to fall.
At DuPage Airport in West Chicago, high winds flipped over three single-engine planes that were tied down outside. "I'm not a mechanic, but they don't look very good," said Mark Doles, director of operations.
In Glenview, a motorist escaped injury Tuesday evening after a vehicle was crushed by a falling tree branch on Shermer Road near East Lake Avenue. The vehicle was in the roadway around 5 p.m. when the branch was apparently ripped from a tree by strong winds.
The driver was not injured, but the vehicle was heavily damaged. Power lines hung low about Shermer Road, weighted down by the massive branch.
The thunderstorms spawned tornado warnings in Kane, Will and Kankakee counties, but they expired around 9 a.m., along with tornado watches that had been issued for much of northeast Illinois. A tornado warning for Lake County in Indiana was cancelled around the same time.
The high winds caused 500 flights to be canceled at O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday. The Chicago Department of Aviation said afternoon delays averaged 45 minutes at O'Hare.
As of 4 p.m., the City of Chicago had responded to 448 tree emergencies, according to a news release from the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Most of the damage involving large branches.
In addition, the city responded to 71 traffic signals out, 63 poles damaged, 36 street lights out, 50 downed wires to city lighting and 37 basements that were flooded.
Sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph were forecast for much of the day, with wind gusts up to 70 mph in the afternoon. The National Weather Service issued a high wind warning effective from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and issued a rare late October tornado watch until 11 a.m. for the entire Chicago area.
With that kind of wind in the forecast, the Chicago Park District chose to close both its Garfield Park and Lincoln Park conservatories to avoid potential problems with the buildings' glass roofs.
By 8 p.m., Commonwealth Edison was reporting about 17,000 customers without power across the region after restoring power to about 188,000 customers, said ComEd spokesman Tony Hernandez, correcting earlier information that 193,000 had had power restored by 8 p.m. The utility's northern region had the largest remaining number without power, about 8,800. About 4,000 customers in the city, 7,300 in the areas south of the city, and 6,000 in the west suburbs were also without service.
The massive storm, packing lightning and heavy downpours, is the result of a low-pressure system that the western Great Lakes and upper Midwest region has not experienced in decades.
"The storm system will be one of the most powerful we have seen in this part of the country in more than 70 years," said Jim Allsopp, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service. "This is a big deal."
The weather service said the system's pressure reading today was the lowest ever in a non-tropical storm in the mainland U.S. If confirmed, that would be worse than the pressure that produced the Blizzard of 1978, the March 1993 "Storm of the Century" or the November 1975 storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald freighter, memorialized in a song by Gordon Lightfoot.
Liam Ford and the Associated press contributed to this report.
-- Carlos Sadovi, Serena Maria Daniels, Dahleen Glanton, Amy Alderman, David Elsner,
Brian Slodysko, James Janega, Dennis Sullivan, Clifford Ward, Dave Marzullo and Jeff Danna
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