Chicago-area tornado and storm injure at least 5 people as storms move east

Jun 21, 2021 admin No Comments 219 Views

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The line of severe storms will continue to track east Monday, with the strongest storms expected in late afternoon and evening from southern Ohio and West Virginia to Maine. The slight risk of severe storms in this area extends east to Washington, DC, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Some 30 miles west of Chicago in Naperville, about 130 homes were damaged, five people were injured and about 10 families were displaced, city Fire Chief Mark Puknaitis said.

When fire crews arrived, they found one home leveled and a couple of other houses with severe damage, Puknaitis said during a news briefing at the scene.

“There were people that were trapped in the house that was really leveled by the wind damage,” Puknaitis said.

Fire crews quickly rescued the three trapped residents. One was in critical condition and two others were noncritical, according to the chief.

“It all happened so fast, I can’t even tell you,” Naperville resident Dennis Wenzel said. “I just heard the loudest roar of wind come in and the house, the pressure, just kind of like moved the windows and everything.”

In Woodridge, about six miles to the west, about 100 home were severely damaged after a tornado touched down, city police said in a news release posted on Twitter.

The storm also struck Bolingbrook, Illinois.

Lisle-Woodridge Fire Chief Keith Kreston said three people were taken to hospitals but their injuries were unknown.

Woodridge Police Chief Brian Cunningham said the city received more than 200 calls for help, as the tornado, about three blocks wide, touched down around 11:10 p.m. and traveled approximately 3 miles from west to east.

“During that path, there was a lot of destruction, mostly of homes and some multi-family dwellings,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham said around 6,500 people were impacted by power outages and around 2,500 remained without power.

More than 150,000 customers are without power after storms swept across the Midwest, according to PowerOutage.US. Michigan alone had about 100,000 customers without power late Monday morning.

At least one tornado hit, weather service says

The Sunday night storm could end up being “the first strong tornado (EF-2+) in the metro counties since 2015,” the National Weather Service in Chicago tweeted.

“We have enough evidence on radar, damage reports, and storm spotter reports to say we’ve had a tornado in at least part of that area if not all those communities,” NWS Chicago said.

The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning around 11:43 p.m. ET, shortly before the storms passed through the Naperville area.

CNN’s Christine Sever and Monica Garrett contributed to this report.

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