Homes and buildings in Kankakee County were reduced to piles of rubble late Tuesday night after severe weather and a reported tornado tore through the Chicago area, leaving behind at least seven people hurt, several schools closed and thousands of power outages.
“It sounded like bowling balls,” one resident in Kankakee County described. “We thought it was hail. It was literally a freight train. We stepped outside and saw our neighbor’s garage, gone. Our neighbors house, gone. Both our cars, our living room, our shed — gone.”
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Early Wednesday morning, NBC 5’s Lisa Chavarria described the storm damage in the area as lightning and thunderstorms continued, with downed power lines, trees tangled up in debris and parts of buildings strewn about, including an Aldi grocery store.
In a statement, Kankakee Mayor Chris Curtis said the tornado “traveled through the southwest portion of the City of Kankakee causing damage to industrial sites and commercial buildings along the Route 45/52 corridor.”
Video online shows a reported tornado moving though Aroma Park, Illinois.
Curtis said the severe weather “severed” power lines and continued to damage several homes in incorporated Kankakee County. Several roads were shut down as storm cleanup continued, and a Red Cross Shelter was activated for those impacted.
Curtis and other officials will provide an update on the damage at 8 a.m. Wednesday. The update will play in the video above once in begins.
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In the small town of Lake Village, Indiana, in Newton County, officials confirmed a tornado touched down, with search and rescue crews still on scene early Wednesday. NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes described the storm that hit Lake Village as a “massive supercell.”
In a press conference overnight, the Lake Village sheriff’s office said the storms left “several areas of devastation.”
“Complete annihilation of homes right now,” the sheriff’s office said during the update, warning volunteers to stay home. “It’s too dangerous. It’s too dark.”
The sheriff’s office later said at least two people were killed and several were hurt in the storms.
Early Wednesday morning, video and photo from NBC 5 photographers captured a damage at a gas station, with building parts broken and slammed to the ground.
Closer to Chicago, the storm lead to giant, “destructive” hail and ground stops at Chicago airports. Thunderstorms and lightning were expected to continue across the Chicago area through the early morning hours before a mixture of rain and snow showers by afternoon, the NBC 5 Storm Team said.
Later Wednesday, the National Weather Service will be out surveying the storm damage to confirm where tornadoes touched down, and how strong they were.
“I suspect at least an EF-2 to EF-3 range,” NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Kevin Jeanes said, of the intensity.
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