The weekend storms have left thousands of Chicagoland area residents and many throughout Indiana dealing with power outages, property damage and traffic snarls.
After Sunday’s storm, 46,000 Commonwealth Edison customers were without power, ComEd spokesman Judy Rader said. The outages have affected 6,000 Chicago customers, while 20,000 south suburban, 14,000 west suburban and 6,000 north suburban customers are without power. The numbers include the 11,500 south suburban customers still without power from Saturday’s storm.
The city’s Department of Streets & Sanitation is cleaning up “light to moderate” damage from Sunday’s storms, according to a Streets & Sanitation.
Crews responded to 126 “tree emergencies,” including a tree that fell on a car in the 400 block of West 37th Street, according to the department, which stressed most of the tree damage involved downed branches.
The department has also responded to 14 traffic light outages, 12 damaged light poles and 17 down city light poles, the release said.
On the roads, Saturday’s tornado still has Interstate 57 closed Sunday afternoon, State Police said. Five transmission towers that supported high-voltage power lines were “severely damaged” by the storm and left stray wires blocking the expressway. ComEd experts say transmission tower damage is “rare” and may take up to a week to fully repair.
The interstate remains closed in both directions and may not be open Monday morning, said Illinois State Police District Joliet Sgt. Martez Malone. Traffic was “moving slowly” Sunday afternoon, and State Police expect even heavier congestion Monday morning, he said.
“Last I heard, there is a possibility it will reopen tomorrow [Monday] afternoon, but we can’t be sure,” Malone said.
State Police are detouring southbound vehicles between Sauk Trail and Route 17 -- about four miles -- before reentering the interstate near Monee Road, Malone said.
Northbound traffic is closed at Route 17 and is being diverted to Route 30, I-394 or I-80, Malone said.
The National Weather Service is predicting an 80 percent chance of storms Sunday evening, when temperatures will be about 82 degrees.
The storms are expected to continue into Monday morning, and could be severe with damaging winds and heavy rain, the national weather service said.
The storms have prompted the National Weather Service to issue a lakeshore flood warning that will remain in effect until 9 p.m. because a two-foot drop in Lake Michigan water near Chicago indicates a seiche is in progress across the southern parts of the lake, causing water levels to fluctuate rapidly.
Residents on or near the shore should be alerted for rising water and evacuate docks, piers and breakwalls immediately, the weather service said.
A flash flood watch also remains in effect for northern Illinois until Monday night. A flash flood watch means conditions may develop that lead to flash flooding. Residents should be prepared to take action, the weather service said. •PLAINFIELD CENTRAL HIGH had its roof damaged by Sunday afternoon’s storm. Trees were tossed trees near a memorial dedicated to victims of a 1990 tornado.
The storm reached Plainfield Central High School, 24120 W. Beggs Drive, about noon and knocked down trees, damaged the school’s roof, tennis court fence and baseball dugouts, Plainfield Fire Protection District Lt. Bob Knowles said.
Some of the damaged trees fell near a memorial dedicated to a 1990 tornado that tore through the village, according to Knowles, who said this storm took the same path as the ’90 storm.
National Weather Service meteorologist Nathan Marsili confirmed the storm damaged the school, but could not confirm if the damage was from a tornado. Marsili said the weather service will investigate the damage Monday to determine if the damage was from a tornado, or just high winds.
Knowles said he saw a funnel cloud forming, but never saw a tornado. A Plainfield police dispatcher also did not believe a tornado touched the ground.
•SATURDAY, Severe storms crippled central Indiana with as much as 10 inches of rain Saturday and spawned tornadoes that ripped up roofs and flipped tractor-trailers in Wisconsin and the Chicago suburbs.
The floods in Indiana threatened dams, inundated highways and forced the Coast Guard to rescue residents from swamped homes. Rising flood waters forced the evacuation of more than 100 patients and doctors from a hospital south of Indianapolis. To the northwest, Chicago-area residents ran for cover as tornadoes touched down throughout the region.
Wisconsin had a few tornado injuries, and at least one injury was reported near Chicago. Indiana had been spared any reported deaths or injuries due to flooding.
"At this point, mercifully, we believe all Hoosiers are secure," Gov. Mitch Daniels said at a news conference. "We hope that will continue."
Daniels declared an emergency in 17 counties as the Coast Guard was called in from the Great Lakes to help with flooding that has forced hundreds of people from their homes.
Ninety percent of the small town of Paragon, southwest of Indianapolis, is underwater, said State Homeland Security Director Joe Wainscott.
Water reached the first floor of Johnson Memorial Hospital in Franklin, but no patients had to be moved, county Commissioner Tom Kite said. Cars are submerged up to their windshields in the county government building parking lot.
"We have dams failing in the Prince's Lakes area," threatening the town of Nineveh, about 30 miles south of Indianapolis, Kite said.
Nearby, officials evacuated patients and staff from Columbus Hospital, about 40 miles south of Indianapolis, when roads around the site were submerged.
Indiana State Police reported evacuations in the Lake Lemon area about 10 miles northeast of Bloomington. Dams near Gold Point were close to collapse, police said.
Near Martinsville, southwest of Indianapolis, Ben Pace watched motorboats rescuing neighbors. The rain didn't appear that bad when he woke up, Pace said, but he then watched water rise 6 to 8 inches in his backyard shed.
"Then I realized that it's worse than it's ever been," he said.
A rescuer came by boat to his front door to get him. He managed to grab some clothes and his dog, leaving the home with knee-deep water in his bedroom.
Interstate 70 was closed in Clay County in west-central Indiana, and Interstate 65 and another major route, U.S. 31, both were closed near Franklin.
Residents of Helmsburg, a town of about 6,000 just 40 miles south of Indianapolis, were taken by bus to a YMCA in Nashville, said Wayne Freeman, Brown County Red Cross chairman.
In western Indiana, water more than a foot deep surrounded homes on Terre Haute's east side. U.S. 41 was the only route open into Terre Haute, and it was down to one lane by mid-afternoon.
J.D. Kesler, deputy director of the Vigo County Emergency Management Agency, said more than 200 people had to be rescued from their homes, vehicles and nursing homes there.
Peter Perdoue, 35, a mortgage broker from Terre Haute, heard a trickle Saturday morning and checked his daughter's basement room. The water had risen above the window.
"It was almost like I was standing inside an aquarium," he said.
Within a few hours, sewage started backing into his basement, and it wasn't long before the waters had filled his basement up to the 10-foot ceiling.
More than 30,000 electricity customers lost power, the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission said.
Near Chicago, Will County Sheriff's Department spokesman Pat Barry said a tornado damaged several homes in the Wilmington area and toppled trees and power lines.
A person was injured on Interstate 57 in the southern suburbs, and a swath of the major highway closed as authorities worked to clear overturned trucks, said state Trooper Mark Dorencz.
Tornadoes were also reported in Lake County, north of the city, and in Livingston County, to the southwest.
Central and southeastern Wisconsin were pelted with baseball-size hail in a storm that blew roofs off homes, toppled trees and power lines, and injured at least six people. Heavy rains also pelted the area, causing flash flooding.
Flooding built up around Milwaukee, where water as deep as 2 feet in roads caused parked cars to drift and closed parts of an interstate highway.
On the south side of town, two vacant buildings partially collapsed because of the heavy rains, authorities said. No injuries were reported there. ---
Associated Press writers Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis and Ryan Lenz in Terre Haute contributed to this report.
Contents of this site are Copyright 2008 by WBBM. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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