Midwest cleans up after rain, tornadoes pound the region

By Melissa Perez Winder, Ed White and Jim Salter | Associated Press

CHICAGO — Hundreds of people in a southern Illinois town were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as water rolled over the top of a dam, just one perilous result of severe weather that raged through Midwest overnight with relentless rain and tornadoes and hit the Chicago area especially hard.

Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and even weather forecasters had to briefly scramble for safety. A woman in Indiana died after a tree fell on a home Monday night.

“We kind of heard a gust of wind that came up quick and we decided — my uncle decided — that we’d all go into the basement,” said Mihajlo Jevdosic, 16, in Norridge, Illinois, where residents swapped stories of the storm and watched a crew clear a tree. “And as we went in the basement, we heard a big thump and the tree fell on the house.”

Water overtopped a dam near Nashville, Illinois, sending first responders out to ensure everyone got out safely. There were no reports of injuries in the community of 3,000, southeast of St. Louis, but a woman reported water up to her waist in her home, said Alex Haglund, a spokesperson for the Washington County Emergency Management Agency.

Officials had earlier said about 300 people were in the evacuation zone near the city reservoir. The rest of Nashville was not in imminent danger from the dam failure, but flash flooding on roads created worries about water rescues.

Haglund said a portion of the dam failed early Tuesday, but it wasn’t clear if it was a break or an overtopping. A “secondary failure” happened later in the morning when the dam was overtopped.

The National Weather Service said 5-7 inches (12.7-17.8 centimeters) of rain fell over an eight-hour period. Additional heavy rain was in the forecast. A long stretch of Interstate 64 in the Nashville area was closed.

As the storms swept the Chicago area late Monday, employees at a suburban weather service office had to pass coverage duties to a Michigan post for five minutes. The agency reported wind speeds in the region as high as 75 mph (120 kph).

“We did have an area of rotation,” meteorologist Zachary Yack said, referring to extreme rotating wall clouds. “And it kind of developed right near our office here in Romeoville, Illinois. … We went and took cover. We have a storm shelter here.”

A 44-year-old woman died in Cedar Lake, Indiana, in the southern fringes of the Chicago area, the Lake County coroner’s office said.

The weather service confirmed a tornado hit Des Moines, Iowa, as storms rolled through Monday afternoon and into the night. Police responded to calls about utility poles that snapped in two.

The storms then moved east into northern Illinois and the Chicago area, which saw tornado warnings and drenching rain. The weather service said it was dispatching teams in Illinois and Indiana to check 29 paths of damage for evidence that tornadoes caused them.

Carol Gillette said she heard a crash that sounded “like a bomb” as trees smashed cars and houses in Oswego, Illinois.

“I haven’t called the insurance yet. I don’t know where to start,” Gillette told WBBM-TV. “This is the first time I’ve ever been through this. I’m just happy we are all alive.”