Sloopo.com

There was damage everywhere.

Within the first hour after the first storms blew through, the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation received reports of 884 tree limbs blown into streets. Another 76 traffic lights were out in the city, 54 light poles were damaged, and some 75 electrical wires to city light poles were down — which did not take into account utility lines.

Judy Rader, a spokeswoman with ComEd, said some 186,000 customers were without service as of late this afternoon. Most, about 108,000, were in the north suburbs. Another 36,000 were without power in the south suburbs, 30,000 in Chicago and another 12,000 in the west suburbs.

“It’s a very severe storm and it’s still moving through our service territory so these numbers are expected to change,” Rader said.

This afternoon, a fast-moving storm packing winds over 70 mph turned skies from day to night across a wide swath of the Chicago area.

Weather-related delays stranded thousands on Metra trains.

A tornado scare briefly grounded all aircraft in the Chicago region for the first time since the 2001 terrorist attacks, aviation officials said.

The deluge of rain today forced the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to open locks on the North Shore Channel in Wilmette, allowing millions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage to flow into Lake Michigan.

A severe thunderstorm watch was in effect until 8 p.m. for Lake, Cook, McHenry and DuPage Counties, as well as other counties across the state.

From early reports, the worst-hit area appeared to be West Chicago.

About 40 people were injured there when heavy winds forced the warehouse roof of Uptime Parts, a truck parts distributor, to collapse. Seven people were sent to Central DuPage Hospital with non life-threatening injuries, according to police.

“All of a sudden the building started shaking and the ceiling started collapsing,” said Jim Hrody, 36, an Uptime employee and a lieutenant with the Westchester Emergency Management Agency. “We were sitting in two inches of water. It sounded like a train and a jet plane crashing into the building. I grabbed as many people as I could and threw them in an office and the men’s bathroom. We turned the file cabinets sideways and squatted down in between them.”

Police responded to a call from the one-story building at 358 Fenton Lane about 3:10 p.m., according to West Chicago Police Chief Bruce Malkin. The building is in an industrial complex with other one-story buildings. Pieces of the roof dangled from power lines on the property and a company delivery truck was destroyed by a caved-in awning.

Police in Bolingbrook reported a tornado may have touched down shortly before 4 p.m. in the Green Valley Forest Preserve, said spokesman Ken Teppel. That is when officials turned on the emergency alarm system, blasting sirens throughout the town. Another tornado had possibly appeared near 119th Street and Naperville Road, he said.

In Chicago, the roof of a high-rise building was blown onto the Inner North Lake Shore Drive, and the storm shattered the glass of a revolving door to the front entrance of the Chicago History Museum at 1601 N. Clark St. No one was injured.

The museum was open at the time and remained open while maintenance workers cleaned up the shattered glass in the lobby. The wind from the street was so forceful that it pushed a pane from a revolving door into a pane behind it, causing that one to shatter as well.

A large piece of metal scaffolding at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Prentice Women’s Hospital collapsed during the storm, and two people suffered minor injuries but refused treatment, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said. The back wall of a four-story building in the 2700 block of North Ashland Avenue collapsed at about 3:50 p.m. due to weather conditions, according to Langford. No injuries were reported. The building was under construction.

A line of trees was uprooted on Logan Square Boulevard. Shoppers on North Michigan Avenue were soaked and were rushed into nearby buildings by security workers.

At about 3:30 p.m., along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, the sunny skies suddenly turned dark and sheets of rain pounded the sides of buildings and sidewalks. Less than a half hour before, people gathered at parks and beaches along the lakefront enjoying a steamy afternoon.

In the northwest suburbs, firefighters and police in Schaumburg scrambled to several sites in the village in the wake of the violent storm, which blew the roof off an industrial building, collapsed a tent used for banquets at the Marriott Hotel, causing minor injuries to people inside, and damaged about a dozen homes in one subdivision.

“We got hit pretty hard in the south and southeast parts of our city,” said Schaumburg Police Sgt. John Nebl. “We have trees and power lines down all over. It came up real quick. …It went from nothing to heavy rain and winds in just a minute.”

Windows were shattered in shops at the Nantucket Square Shopping Center at Wise and Roselle roads, including a Jewel grocery store, according to Nebl. He said there were reports of minor injuries due to flying debris, but he knew of no life-thre3atening injuries. The roof was blown off an industrial building in the 500 block of Estes Avenue, Nebl said, but no one was injured.

In Des Plaines, a man working on scaffolding was injured while working outside when the storm hit, Des Plaines police Sgt. Paul Burger said. Trees were knocked down and there were reports of power outages, he said.

The storm caused flooding and also toppled trees in Streamwood, where some roads were reported to be blocked and traffic lights were out. The police department in Elk Grove Village was without power, they reported.

Along the North Shore, officials in Glencoe, Skokie, Evanston and elsewhere reported countless downed tree limbs blocking roads that in many cases were already made impassable by flooding.

Wilmette activated its Emergency Center for the first time in 15 years, bringing together police, fire and public works officials to assess the damage and coordinate a disaster response, Village President Chris Canning said.

“Right now they’ve heard of no physical injuries but there’s a lot of property damage,” said Canning, who is out of town on vacation but has been receiving phone calls from residents. “I talked to someone who had a sparking wire in the back yard.”

A tornado warning for central Cook and DuPage Counties was in effect until 4 p.m. A similar warning for Kane and DeKalb expired at 3:15 p.m.

In Geneva, where a funnel cloud was spotted, people inside the Kane County Judicial Center were moved into the partial basement of the building.

A Winfield Fire Department spokesman said high winds knocked down trees, power lines and at least one garage. Also, emergency service officials closed County Farm Road north of Geneva Road after a power line fell near there.

Sirens were activated in Elmhurst, Oak Brook and Oak Park about 3:20 p.m. and power was out in parts of Elmhurst. Students moving in to dorms at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb were shuttled into the lower level of dorms as storms approached this afternoon.

Pat Barry, spokesman for the Will County Sheriff’s Department, said it received reports “of a bunch of downed power lines, as well as some road obstructions, branches and stuff” from various county locations. No injuries or major property damage were reported.

Meanwhile, Lake County officials were bracing for flood damage.

They said this afternoon that floodwaters were expected to crest over the banks of the Fox and Des Plaines Rivers as early as Saturday morning.

Mike Warner, executive director of the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission, said the Des Plaines River near Gurnee was reported at 8.08 feet this morning and could crest as early as Saturday morning at 9.7 feet, nearly 3 feet above the 7-foot flood stage. The Fox River near Fox Lake and the Chain O’ Lakes near Antioch also could flood, he said.

Officials at Gurnee Grade School put out a call for volunteers to help their sandbagging effort, hoping to avoid a repeat of the flooding that occurred at the far north suburban school in 2004—the last time serious flooding occurred along the Des Plaines River.

Warner’s agency was helping coordinate the sandbagging effort, providing technical assistance to emergency workers from various township offices and assessing damage that’s already occurred at a few subdivisions along in Fox Lake and to a handful of homes along the Chain O’ Lakes in Antioch.

Gregarious FeedFlare