Local News

I-57 Reopens After Storm Damage

Cleanup And Repairs From Saturday Tornadoes Continues

RICHTON PARK, Ill. (CBS) ― It has been a messy Monday for those hit hardest by the strong storms that slammed Chicagoland over the weekend. CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports that crews worked overtime since Saturday to reopen a stretch of Interstate 57 that was shut down by the storms.

A four-mile stretch of I-57 was shut down for nearly two days because of power lines that were dangerously close to the roadway. All lanes of I-57 were reopened by 10 a.m., but repair work continued on the transmission towers and to restore power to the area.

Five transmission towers that supported high-voltage power lines were "severely damaged" by the storm and left stray wires blocking the expressway.

ComEd crews used large cranes to repair the transmission towers and utility poles held power lines aloft while crews fixed the broken top of one tower.

Officials said this kind of damage is rare. It was caused by three days of storms pounding the south suburbs, including very heavy winds and tornadoes on Saturday.

Spokesman Luiz Diaz-Perez said, "What we've got to do is bring in very heavy equipment to lift the lines, to lift the towers themselves. They're on soggy ground. We've got to bring in very heavy metal plates to accommodate the heavy equipment we've got to bring in to do the restoration work."

Illinois State Police shut I-57 down in both directions near Richton Park on Saturday and because of the extensive work it took to remove the damaged power lines and perform repairs to the transmission towers, repairs lasted into Monday morning.

By 9:45 a.m. Monday, all lanes of I-57 had reopened in both directions.

Meantime, residents in the southern suburbs had a busy weekend cleaning up from storm damage. Work that was made more difficult as several different storms moved through.

The National Weather Service said six tornadoes hit the suburbs on Saturday. One of those twisters hit Richton Park. 

Seven trees were ripped out of the lawn around Maxine Stewart's Richton Park home. She was home alone when the tornado hit Saturday.

"I put my hand against the door, I could feel the pressure in the house. And it happened so fast, next thing you knew it was over with," Stewart said.

That pressure tore the roof off of a nearby warehouse under construction. All of the overhead garage doors were torn from the building and large sheets of metal debris landed in two open fields.

In University Park, Minea Matthews cleaned glass from a broken car window. During the storm, she was in her second floor apartment with her 4-year-old and 4-week-old sons.

"We were in the bathroom originally. We heard the roofing coming off," Matthews said. She went downstairs and huddled with her children in a small foyer, behind the front door.

All the families in her apartment complex were evacuated due to the damage. Ten families were still displaced as of 11 a.m.

Thousands of people were still without power on Monday following the weekend storms. As of 11 a.m. Monday, approximately 3,200 ComEd customers were still without power, according to spokesman Joe Trost. Of those affected customers, 790 were in the south suburbs, with the remainder spread throughout the metropolitan area, Trost said.

More than 200,000 customers have had power restored since 6 a.m. Friday morning when the stormy weather first moved into the area.

As more rain moved through the Chicago area Monday morning, flights at O'Hare International Airport were delayed up to an hour, but those delays were rapidly decreasing as of 11 a.m. due to improving weather conditions. Approximately 50 flights at O'Hare have been canceled as of 11 a.m.

Midway International Airport also had a few flights delayed from 45 minutes to over an hour, with a handful of cancellations reported Monday morning. Delays at Midway were also decreasing.

Repair and clean-up has been underway ever since Saturday's storms ended. A second round of storms moved through Sunday, although those storms brought only rain, not the heavy wind and tornadoes that struck Saturday.

Richton Park Fire Captain Scot Allen said hundreds of trees and branches wre down. Allen actually saw the twister on Saturday as it barreled its way into town.

"It was amazing – the power -- and frightening at the same time as it came through town, because we could see what areas it was gonig to hit," he said.

One dog went for the ride of his life. His name is Chase, but you might as well call him Toto.

"People started coming up and saying 'we saw your dog in flight,'" said Sandra Holmes, Chase's owner.

Chase was in his formerly fenced in backyard Saturday when a tornado literally lifted him into the air and carried him away. Neighbor Tatyiana Smith saw it.

"The dog was in the air, he was going around like he was pulled out of the ground," Smith said.

Residents found Chase more than a block away in the woods, dazed and shocked, but alive.

"It's a miracle," Holmes said. "It's a blessing from God."

Tornadoes tore through Cook, Lake and Will counties Saturday evening, damaging houses and overturning vehicles. Power was out all along areas around I-57 -- mostly between Matteson and University Park. No fatalities were reported and residents are grateful no one was seriously hurt. There's only one minor injury so far, and officials are citing two different sirens going off as a reason for the good outcome.

Danny Thomas said he knows the drill and has endured tornadoes before. "First the sirens went off, the lights went out and I told the family get ready because something's coming. And I heard the roaring like a train coming. I told my family to get into the bathtub," Thomas said. 

CBS 2's Joanie Lum, Dana Kozlov, Susan Carlson, Pamela Jones, the STNG Wire and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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