EF-1 tornadoes hit Chicago, Des Moines during 3-state derecho

Severe weather raged through the Midwest Tuesday 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. The National Weather Service cited a 105-mph tornado in Des Moines, Iowa, one in Chicago and at least four others in the Chicago area as storms rolled through Monday afternoon and into the night. 

The line of storms that swept through Iowa and into Illinois and Indiana have officially qualified as a derecho, a widespread, long-lived windstorm, which included up to 97-mph straight line winds. The Storm Prediction Center made the announcement Tuesday morning. It's the second derecho to come through Iowa this year.

A woman in Indiana died after a tree fell on a home Monday night. Hundreds of people in a southern Illinois town were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as water rolled over the top of a dam.

The weather service’s Chicago office said preliminary findings indicated that an EF-1 tornado struck an area of Chicago that included the western portions of the Loop on Monday night. The weather service said EF-1 tornadoes struck two other areas of suburban Chicago in Illinois. EF-0 twisters were reported in Illinois and Indiana suburbs of Chicago.

Water began to recede in Nashville by Tuesday afternoon. The good news: None of the homes appeared to have obvious structural damage, even though water was three feet deep in many homes and buildings.

A 44-year-old woman died in Cedar Lake, Indiana, in the southern fringes of the Chicago area, after a tree fell on her house, the Lake County coroner’s office said. The exact cause of death was unknown.

The Chicago Fire Department said on the social media site X that there was only one serious injury in the nation’s third-largest city, a person who was hurt when a tree fell on a car.

The storms also cut power to thousands in Ohio and Pennsylvania and caused damage to property, trees and power lines. No injuries were reported.



Damage from tornado not far from the Loop in Chicago. (Pat Nabong, Chicago Sun-Times via AP)