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 the 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. The National Weather Service cited a 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. Police responded to calls about utility poles that snapped in two. 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.''
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 overtopped a dam near Nashville, Illinois, and first responders fanned out to ensure everyone escaped safely. There were no reports of injuries in the community of 3,000, southeast of St. Louis, but a woman was rescued after reporting that she was in water up to her waist in her home, said Alex Haglund, a spokesperson for the Washington County Emergency Management Agency.
About 300 people were in the evacuation zone near the city reservoir, officials said. The rest of Nashville was not in imminent danger from the dam failure, but flash flooding on roads created worries about water rescues.
Water began to recede in Nashville by Tuesday afternoon. But Haglund said those evacuated won't be allowed back into their homes until Wednesday at the earliest. The good news: None of the homes appeared to have obvious structural damage, Haglund said.
The office manager at Zapp's Repair in Nashville said 10 vehicles were stranded at the auto shop. A dumpster behind the business floated down Highway 15.
