Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Three tornadoes are confirmed to have formed in the Chicago area during a night of powerful storms. There were tornado warnings in downtown Chicago, and fans were evacuated from the stands at Wrigley Field on Monday night. The severe weather left a path of damage and an atmosphere of panic. 

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The National Weather Service confirmed three tornadoes from Monday night's storms -- in west suburban Bolingbrook, Griffith in northwest Indiana and Bloomingdale in DuPage County.

Storms continued throughout the night, and were not over Tuesday morning. In the 6 a.m. hour, another tornado warning was issued in southern Kankakee and northern Iroquois counties.

The skies were dark and treacherous for much of the game between the Cubs and the Houston Astros. The telecast of the game was interrupted for an Emergency Alert System broadcast announcing a tornado warning for areas west of Chicago. Soon afterward, rain interrupted the game.

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, at about 8:10 p.m., winds that seemed near gale force began raking the area and the air raid siren that stands sentinel outside Wrigley Field began howling, along with all the other sirens in the city. A voice over the public address system ordered everyone to move into the stadium concourse.

"They told you to get out, down to the concourse, because of bad weather," said Ron Swanson. "A lot of games out here and I've never heard that before; I've never heard that boomer go out across the street."

"I've been coming out here for 30 years. I've never seen anything like it," added fan Mary Eggers. "At least they told us to get out; they warned us and told us to get going."

Hundreds of fans jammed the lower concourse, standing in water almost to their ankles. Many people were frightened.

"The rain started coming down, they started covering the field, and about 10 minutes later they asked us to move towards cover, and then we started hearing the tornado sirens go off," said Suzie Edwards. "It was pretty scary." 

A few people darted into the violent rain and spinning winds, narrowly missing traffic at Clark and Addison streets to seek shelter in nearby bars or catch one of the few cabs available.

The National Weather Service did not immediately confirm any tornado touchdowns Monday night. Trained spotters reported high-rotation winds Widespread tree and power line damage was reported in DeKalb and Kane counties in northeastern Illinois.

Winds clocked in at 70 mph.

Passengers at O'Hare International Airport were evacuated into the lower levels of the complex's buildings. All flights were temporarily halted, and travelers who had already boarded airplanes were taken off as the storm struck, then led to the lower levels as a precaution.

"It was pretty cramped down there, the whole terminal was down there," said George Wickens, 50, of London, who was trying to travel to Florida with his family. "I don't think anything will be getting out of Chicago tonight."

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The storms did not cause any damage or injuries at O'Hare or Midway Airport, said Department of Aviation spokesman Gregg Cunningham.

More than 350 flights were canceled at O'Hare Monday. All flights that resumed at O'Hare averaged delays of an hour or more, Cunningham said. At Midway, delays averaged 90 minutes, with some cancellations reported.

Planes were flying again Tuesday morning. One hundred flights were canceled at O'Hare, and minor delays were reported as of 11 a.m. At Midway Tuesday morning there were a few one-hour delays and some cancellations, according to Cunningham.

The fast-moving storms caught many Chicagoans by surprise.

Kristin Febor, 21, of Chicago watched the rain approach from the roof of the Marina Towers high-rise downtown along with friends.

"The wind picked up and in probably five seconds it blew (my friend) into her husband," she said. "He grabbed her and pulled her inside and we all ran down the stairs. It was like dead still and then within five seconds, ten seconds we were all blown away."

Warning sirens sent pedestrians scrambling into high-rises and train stations for shelter.

Security guards at the Ogilvie Train Station, just off the Chicago River, ushered people streaming inside away from large glass windows and into the middle of the building.

"The lightning between the buildings was looking ominous," said Michaela Nelson, a 58-year-old singer from Barrington, brushing her dripping-wet hair at the station. "And then it just poured."

The Cubs weren't the only sports team affected by the storm. Lightning cut short the Bears morning special teams practice in Bourbonnais, then the tornado warning for Kankakee County ended their night practice after only an hour.


ComEd: Multiple-Day Restoration
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of ComEd customers were left without power.

As of 10:30 a.m., 219,000 Commonwealth Edison customers are without electricity, the majority of whom are in the city and the southern suburbs, according to ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick.

In the city, 99,000 customers remained without power and there were 69,000 customers in the dark in the southern region of the company's service area. The western region had 34,000 without power while the north region has 17,000 customers without power, the release said.

A total of about 427,000 customers were affected since the storms started.

"We have about 270 crews out. They've been working throughout the night," said ComEd Vice President Fidel Marquez. "As of this point, we've restored power to 165,000 customers, but the work will continue 24 hours until we get this done."

The outages will likely take days to fix, Marquez said.

"At this point, we're still saying it's a multiple-day restoration. We're asking a lot of our customers to be patient as we work on clearing all the damage and restoring power," Marquez said. "We'll get a better idea as work goes throughout the day on the extent of damage, and then have a better idea on when the last customer will be restored." 

The hardest hit areas were Lansing, Cicero, Oak Forest, Aurora and Berwyn.

Outages caused serious problems in some areas and even forced evaucations. In the Lincoln Park neighborhood, a power outage in a pair of high-rise buildings prompted an emergency response from firefighters.

Hundreds of residents of the complex at 401 W. Fullerton Pkwy., many of them elderly, were plunged into darkness and heat when the light went out. Firefighters and paramedics responded as a precaution, checking on the well-being of each of the residents.


Trees Uprooted, Man Critically Hurt
Elsewhere in the city, trees and streetlights were knocked down and a panic ensued in many neighborhoods.

In the Logan Square neighborhood, a man was left in critical condition after he was hit by a falling tree.

He was near his home in the 2100 block of North Whipple Street when the tornado warning sirens sounded. High winds and lightning moved in and sent a tree crashing on top of him. 

In the Lincoln Park neighborhood, Sheffield Avenue was completely blocked by a large downed tree between Dickens and Armitage avenues at 11:40 p.m. Monday, according to a witness, who said other streets in Lincoln Park were also partially blocked by downed trees and branches.

On the Northwest Side, a huge tree was uprooted and tore up the sidewalk on top of the roots. The homeowner could not believe what happened, and suspected a tornado might have hit.

A total of 1,438 trees were toppled or damaged in the storm throughout the city. A total of 158 traffic signals were knocked out, 69 city light poles were damaged, and 112 wires to city light poles snapped, according to the city Department of Streets and Sanitation.

There were also 212 blocks where all of the street lights were out, according to the department.

And homeowners in some suburbs do not have much of a house to come home to because of the weather damage. High winds blew bicycles into neighbors' yards, and the storm over a man's chimney.

In St. Charles, winds damaged the roof of St. Charles North High School, which led to water damage. A youth baseball group was in the building when the storm struck. Members of the group were safely evacuated by the local fire department, according to School District 303 Superintendent Don Schlomann.

On the roadways at 1 a.m., a backed up sewer added to the problems on the inbound and outbound Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94) between 83rd and 87th Streets on the South Side, according to Illinois State Police District Chicago Sgt. Michelle Tufenkjian.

"People are going through there and getting stranded and standing on top of their cars,'' the sergeant said during the incident. "It's flooded all over,'' Tufenkjian said. 

Authorities reported lightning and downed power lines may have sparked fires in Chicago, Hillside and unincorporated Downers Grove. Strong winds ripped the roofs from a Hillside commercial building and at least a half-dozen homes in the Hickory Oaks subdivision in Bolingbrook.

CBS 2's Mike Parker, Jay Levine, Don Schwenneker and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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