Devastating storms swept through the Midwest on Wednesday, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of customers and causing more than a thousand flights to be delayed or canceled at Chicago airports.
The National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for Illinois, Kansas, northern Missouri and southern Iowa, while severe thunderstorm warnings were posted for parts of the Great Lakes.
The Chicago area was prepared for the weather. Storms that moved in Wednesday afternoon, downing trees and damaging some buildings, were expected to be followed by more violent weather in the evening. The National Weather Service warned that storms are moving east across northern Illinois and are likely to bring “damaging winds, one or two short tornadoes, and locally heavy rain, increasing the risk of flash flooding.”
Chicago’s two major airports, Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway International Airport, temporarily suspended all flights for the evening due to thunderstorms. A similar ground stop was issued at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport due to thunderstorms.
By Wednesday evening, more than 1,000 flights to and from Chicago had been postponed or cancelled, according to the British Daily Mail. FlightAwareFlight tracking website.
Strong winds blew off part of the roof of an apartment building in the Chicago area, forcing residents to leave, according to NBC 5 Chicago. Elsewhere, barns collapsed in Wisconsin, buildings were destroyed in rural northern Missouri, and some large trees and power lines were downed in other areas across the Midwest, photos and videos online showed.
According to Reuters, more than 264,000 customers were without power in Illinois, the majority in Cook County, and nearly 140,000 were without power in Michigan. poweroutage.com. There were also outages in Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio.
Commonwealth Edison, which provides electric service in northern Illinois, said the storms knocked down poles and wires.
“We know this is a challenge and we will restore service as safely and quickly as conditions allow,” the company said in a post on X.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warned residents Wednesday afternoon that conditions were expected to intensify and could lead to tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, damaging winds and flash flooding.
“Make sure you have a safe place to take shelter, keep up with weather updates, and check on your neighbors,” he said on the X show.