Power outages: More than 16k Chicago-area customers without power following severe weather; downed trees, power lines causing transit delays (2024)

Chicago area power outages continued Wednesday morning after a system of severe weather Tuesday brought deadly tornadoes to Iowa and downed trees, strong winds and dust storms to Illinois.

While much of the Chicago area managed to avoid the severe weather outbreak, as of 5 a.m. Wednesday, more than 16,000 ComEd customers were without power across Northern Illinois, according to ComEd's outage map.

More than 4,000 of those outages were in Cook County, the outage map showed. Power outages affecting 2,000 people or more were also reported in Lake and DuPage Counties, according to the map.

West of Rockford, in Stephenson County, more than 3,000 ComEd customers were without power, the map showed.

In several suburbs including Niles and Bartlett, downed powerlines were causing road closures, as well as delays and transit issues on the CTA Yellow Line and Metra Milwaukee North Line.

In Elgin, NBC 5 reported Lisa Chavarria reported downed trees and smashed car windows due to flying debris overnight.

"We continue to track the severe storms with strong wind gusts in our area," a statement posted to ComEd's website read. "We will provide updated information as often as possible. Our crews are in the field ready to make repairs and restore power as needed."

According to the NBC 5 Storm Team, Wednesday and Thursday were expected to remain mild dry in the Chicago area, with storms and shows returning Friday morning and late afternoon and continuing through the evening hours.

Showers and storms were also in the forecast Sunday, NBC 5 Meteorologist Alicia Roman said.

In Iowa, the severe weather outbreak was deadly for some parts, and crews from the National Weather Service were expected to survey at least three areas to survey damage and officially determine how many tornadoes touched down.

Tornado kills multiple people in Iowa as power storms tear through Midwest

Multiple people were killed when a tornado tore through Greenfield and left a wide swath of obliterated homes, crumpled cars and splintered trees, while outside the small Iowa town, massive wind turbines were buckled and twisted to the ground by the howling winds.

Afterdevastating the town of 2,000 residentson Tuesday, the storms moved eastward to pummel parts of Illinois and Wisconsin, knocking out power to more than 130,000 customers in the two states.

Greenfield’s hospital was among the buildings that were damaged in the town, which meant that at least a dozen people who were hurt had to be taken to facilities elsewhere, according to Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla.

“Sadly we can confirm that there have been fatalities,” Dinkla said at a news conference Tuesday night, without specifying how many. “We’re still counting at this time.”

He said he thought they had accounted for all of the town’s residents but that searches would continue if anyone was reported missing. The Adair County Health System said in a Facebook post Tuesday night that it had set up a triage center at the Greenfield high school and that people who need medical attention should go there.

The tornado destroyed much of Greenfield, which is located about 55 miles (90 kilometers) southwest of Des Moines, during a day that saw multiple tornadoes, giant hail and heavy rain in several states.

Authorities announced a mandatory curfew for the town and said they would only allow residents to enter Greenfield until Wednesday morning. They also ordered media representatives to leave the city Tuesday night.

In the aftermath of the storm, mounds of broken wood from homes, branches, car parts and other debris littered lots where homes once stood. Some trees still standing were stripped of their limbs and leaves. Residents helped each other salvage furniture and other belongings that were strewn in every direction.

Rogue Paxton said he sheltered in the basem*nt of his home when the storm moved through. He told WOI-TV he thought the house was lost but said his family got lucky.

“But everyone else is not so much, like my brother Cody, his house just got wiped,” Paxton said. “Then you see all these people out here helping each other. ... Everything’s going to be fine because we have each other, but it’s just going to be really, really rough. It is a mess.”

Multiple tornadoes were reported throughout the state, and one also apparently took down several 250-foot (76-meter) wind turbines in southwest Iowa. Some of the turbines caught fire, sending plumes of smoke into the air. Wind farms are built to withstand tornadoes, hurricanes and other powerful winds.

Greenfield bills itself on its website as a “friendly wave as you walk” type of place with tree-lined streets — before the storm — and as the “perfect place to grow.”

Mary Long, the owner of Long’s Market in downtown Greenfield, said she rode out the storm at her business in the community’s historic town square, which largely escaped damage. Long said there appeared to be widespread damage on the east and south sides of town.

“I could hear this roaring, like the proverbial freight train, and then it was just done,” she said.

Camille Blair said the Greenfield Chamber of Commerce office where she works closed around 2 p.m. ahead of the storm.

“I can see from my house it kind of went in a straight line down the road,” she said of the tornado.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said she planned to visit Greenfield on Wednesday morning.

“It was just a few weeks ago that tornadoes hit several other Iowa communities, and it’s hard to believe that it’s happened again,” she said in a statement. “Iowans are strong and resilient, and we will get through this together.”

Iowa had braced for severe weather after the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center gave most of the state a high chance of seeing severe thunderstorms with the potential for strong tornadoes. The storms and tornado warnings moved into Wisconsin on Tuesday evening and night.

Earlier in the day, residents to the west in Omaha, Nebraska, awoke to sirens blaring and widespread power outages as torrential rain, high winds and large hail pummeled the area. The deluge flooded basem*nts and submerged cars. Television stationKETVshowed firefighters rescuing people from vehicles.

In Illinois, dust storms led authorities to shut down stretches of two interstates due to low visibility.

The storms followeddays of extreme weatherthat have ravaged much of the middle section of the country. Strong winds, large hail and tornadoes swept parts of Oklahoma and Kansas late Sunday, damaging homes and injuring two in Oklahoma.

Another round of storms Monday night raked Colorado and western Nebraska and saw the city ofYuma, Colorado, blanketed in hail the size of baseballs and golf balls, turning streets into rivers of water and ice.

n Texas,deadly stormsh*t the Houston area last week, killing at least eight people. Those storms Thursday knocked out power to hundreds of thousands for days, leaving many in the dark and without air conditioning duringhot and humid weather. Hurricane-force winds reduced businesses and other structures to debris and shattered glass in downtown skyscrapers.

Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service, said the system is expected to turn south Wednesday, bringing more severe weather to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri.