According to the National Weather Service, numerous reports of tornadoes have been registered at the west and southwest of Chicago. The tornado caused extensive damage at a summer camp and golf course and to a manufactured home where two injuries were reported.
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IL officials and residents are assessing damage after six tornadoes damaged rural communities in the northern part of the state amid powerful storms that swept across the Upper Midwest.
The overnight storms also knocked out power for more than 25,000 early Thursday throughout central OH, and sporadic flooding was reported.
Earlier in the night, just after 8:30 p.m., a tornado was confirmed in Ottawa, about 90 miles southwest of Chicago, the NWS said.
Violent thunderstorms spawned multiple tornadoes in IL on Wednesday, including one that left a trail of damage in Pontiac, about 100 miles south of Chicago. And now the Officials plan to conduct surveys Thursday to determine exactly how many tornadoes touched down and the paths they took, according to the service.
A tornado watch issued for a swath of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana Wednesday evening – stretching from Cedar Rapids to Chicago and northwestern Indiana – until 1 a.m. Thursday local time.
Brookston made the declaration Thursday morning after the entire town lost power. Some residents were reportedly trapped in trailers at a mobile home park as the tornado swept across the region.
The weather service forecast the possibility of widespread damaging winds and some hurricane-force gusts late Wednesday, with large hail and a few isolated tornados also possible.
There were no reported fatalities or injures from the single weather system, which produced heavy rains and winds approaching 60 miles per hour, he said.
The LaSalle County Emergency Management Agency says it received reports late Wednesday of tree branches littering the streets of Earlville, but no reports of damage to homes or businesses.
The National Weather Service says it has crews out Thursday morning surveying damage from at least three separate supercell paths. “But there’s a lot of damage”, Maierhofer told WLS-TV.
A confirmed tornado in Nicholas County Tuesday already puts West Virginia at it’s yearly average for tornadoes.
“These storms will quickly become severe”, the National Weather Service said.
Hermann said that with his pickup truck and drove for 10 square miles in those areas describing the rural communities as wiped out everywhere, it’s bad.
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“Lines are down, trees are down, corn is flat everywhere”, he told the Chicago Tribune. No damage or injuries were reported.
