The storms barreled through the area rapidly in the afternoon. Severe thunderstorm warnings popped off first counties southwest in Chicago, then in the city and immediate surrounding area.
Thunderclaps were heard in downtown Chicago during the 3 p.m. hour, followed by torrential rain. Hail was also reported in some areas.
The storms were gone as fast as they came, but not before leaving a trail of damage. The hardest-hit areas were west and southwest of the city.
Suspected microburst in Lisle
In west suburban Lisle, a massive pine tree was completely uprooted in what neighbors said was a possible microburst, involving 80 mph wind gusts. But that tree fell only on one yard. Other residents of Lisle and numerous other communities saw their homes damaged too.
Within seconds, strong, forceful winds pushed through Marlene Lopez’s back porch, also in Lisle, sweeping up and knocking down furniture, and tearing window screens off.
All evening, residents like Joe Arellano helped the business owner next door to him clear the debris after a tree fell. The tree was so big, it took the chain off his saw.
“It’s tough. I mean, my thing just broke,” Arellano said. “I mean, I tried to help a little bit of it, but it didn’t work.”
Arellano and other volunteers spent the rest of the night using a manual saw and clippers to clear a driveway so when Friday comes around, patients could get into the medical office behind where the tree fell.
On the same block in Lisle, a tree nearly missed a house when the storm split it in two and left it splintered. Arellano said his neighbor who lives in the house was out of town.
“He got lucky because his house is in the middle, and everything happened around it,” Arellano said.
Across the street, a home was shuttered up after residents said a possible microburst tore through and broke the window.
In west suburban Lyons, a building partially collapsed. Bricks fell from the apartment building at Ogden and Powell avenues, which looked like it once housed a business on the ground floor.
Lyons police Chief Thomas Herion said there were no injuries.
Lyons police Chief Thomas Herion
Lyons police Chief Thomas Herion
In Montgomery south of Aurora, two houses caught fire after a tree and power line fell.
In Naperville, two trees fell in the middle of Modaff Road just north of 87th Street, leaving the roadway blocked.
“We saw sheets of rain that were going probably 40, 35 miles an hour,” said Ethan Singer of Naperville. “You could feel it in the car pushing on us.”
Emergency management was on scene in Naperville to reroute traffic as people across the community came to check it out.
“I just was like, ‘Dad, look, there’s a giant tree fallen, and I’ve never seen one right in the middle of the road,” said Ethan’s son, Neeko.
The storms were also to blame for an incident in Berwyn in which natural gas lines caught fire and exploded at a BP station. After multiple power lines came down during the storms, two main natural gas lines caught fire at the gas station at the BP Amoco station at 6749 W. Ogden Ave.
At 3:49 p.m., the natural gas lines exploded and the gas station collapsed completely, officials said. The office and convenience store structure at the gas station was leveled and left lying in ruins with some areas aflame.
Trees fall, damage houses in Chicago
The city of Chicago was not spared from storm damage.
At 71st Street and Seeley Avenue in West Englewood, the storms knocked a large tree right on top of a house. The homeowner’s daughter said the tree trapped her mother in the property.
In the Morgan Park neighborhood near 109th and Throop streets, a person suffered minor injuries when a tree came down on a house. But the damage to the house was so severe that the house had to be condemned.
“The wind picked like heavily, and you know, blowing limbs around. But anyhow, we were in the house, and all of a sudden, I hear a bunch of just tearing up,” said Roland P. Watkins, onto whose home the tree fell. “That was the tree coming down on the back two rooms.”
The Chicago subreddit also documented several trees down in the East Lakeview area, including one large tree on top of a car on Barry Avenue between Broadway and the six-way intersection with Halsted and Clark streets, and another tree blocking Cambridge Avenue between Belmont Avenue and Briar Place.
A large tree also came down at 78th Street and Exchange Avenue in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood.
More than 50,000 ComEd customers lost power in the storms, the utility said. The total was down to about 24,000 by 10 p.m.
A ground stop was put in place at both O’Hare and Midway international airports during the storms. It was later lifted.
The storms moved quickly through the immediate Chicago area. But heavy and gusty thunderstorms with torrential downpours kept pounding their way through Kankakee County and Northwest Indiana, as well as LaSalle County, into the evening hours.
Additional rounds of heavy rain will move through at times Friday and Saturday, leading to milder high temperatures. Humidity will remain very high.
Rain dries up as another heat dome builds Sunday, leading to Weather Alerts Sunday and Monday for feels-like temperatures again up to 110 degrees. A more sustained cool-down is expected starting next Wednesday as a cold front brings high temperatures down to the 70s for the start of Lollapalooza weekend.
Dave Savini
contributed to this report.
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