More than 1 million homes and businesses in the Midwest were without power on Tuesday morning after a rare storm packing winds of 100-plus mph tore through Chicago and into Indiana and Michigan.
Monday’s derecho — a widespread, intense and long-lived wind storm — lasted more than 14 hours, spanned more than 770 miles and resulted in nearly 500 severe wind reports. Numerous wind gusts clocked in at over 100 mph.
The derecho began as a small thunderstorm cluster near the Nebraska and Iowa border early Monday morning, but as is typical of such storms, it grew in size, picked up speed and gained intensity as it moved east.
By 4 p.m., it reached the Chicago area, bringing peak gusts that were frequently 70 mph to 90 mph. along with the risk of embedded tornadoes.
“While much of the wind damage was straight-line wind, a few tornadoes were likely embedded within the storm complex across the region,” and one tornado has been confirmed in the city’s Rogers Park neighborhood, the National Weather Service in Chicago tweeted.
Nearly 390,000 Chicago-area residents were without power Tuesday morning, NBC Chicago reported.
Monday’s storm that took down trees and power lines followed a tense night of looting and clashes in downtown Chicago following a police-involved shooting, which resulted in street closures and public transportation shutdowns.
A statement from utility Commonwealth Edison said crews in the Chicago area were prioritizing getting power back to police and fire stations, nursing homes and hospitals.
“This is our version of a hurricane,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. He said Monday’s derecho will go down as one of the strongest in recent history and would likely be one of the country’s worst weather events of 2020.
After ripping through Chicago, the most potent part of the storm system moved over north-central Indiana by late afternoon.
Indiana had more than 100,000 power outages Tuesday morning, according to utilities. More than 500,000 were reported in Illinois; 400,000 in Missouri; 36,000 in Michigan and 400,000 in Iowa.
Roof damage to homes and buildings was reported in several Iowa cities, including at a hockey arena in Des Moines. Across the state, large trees fell on cars and houses. Some semi-trailers flipped over or were blown off highways.
Several people were injured and widespread property damage was reported in Marshall County in central Iowa after 100 mph winds swept through the area, said its homeland security coordinator, Kim Elder.
Elder said the high winds blew over trees, flipped cars, downed power lines, ripped up road signs and tore roofs off buildings, some of which caught fire.
Patrick Marsh, science support chief at the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said he’s most concerned about the power outages now that the storm has passed. On top of summer heat, the coronavirus pandemic and people whose medical conditions require power, the situation “becomes dire pretty quickly,” he said.
Kathryn Prociv contributed.
