CHICAGO (WLS) — Cleanup across the Chicago area is underway after strong thunderstorms spawned at least two confirmed tornadoes Thursday.<\/p>\n
The National Weather Service will be sending team out to survey damage in Streator, Naperville, Bartlett and Northwest Indiana Friday.<\/p>\n
ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\n These strong storms have knocked out power for people across our area. Early Friday morning, ComEd reported more than 170,000 customers without power.<\/p>\n In Northwest Indiana, NIPSCO says more than 74,000 customers are without power.<\/p>\n SEE ALSO: Track power outages in your area with the ABC7 Chicago Power Outage Tracker<\/a><\/p>\n The South Shore Line service was disrupted between South Bend and Michigan City and was restored Friday morning.<\/p>\n In Streator, some homes were completely demolished after a tornado swept through the southern part of town.<\/p>\n A reported tornado left a number of homes heavily damaged in Streator.<\/p>\n A state of emergency has been declared there in the town of about 12,000 people.<\/p>\n Some people said that they hid in bathrooms and basements as they heard parts of their home crumble.<\/p>\n “I’ll tell you what, it was the scariest things I’ve witnessed,” Streator resident Clint Stevens said. “I mean, being this close to me and actually watching the funnel cloud. It, It was definitely scary.”<\/p>\n So far, the mayor said there have been no reported deaths.<\/p>\n One man was found in a pile of rubble at his home near Saratoga Lane and Sunbury Drive as a camera caught the moment first responders arrived to help.<\/p>\n The Red Cross opened a shelter at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church for people in need of assistance.<\/p>\n An employee of Andrean High School in Merrillville, Indiana fights back tears and vows to rebuild after surveying storm damage to the school.<\/p>\n In Northwest Indiana, there’s a shelter open in Hobart to support people impacted by the storm.<\/p>\n Crews were seen working overnight to clear out some of the downed trees near third Street and Lake Park Avenue.<\/p>\n The shelter is at the police complex gym on 704 east Fourth street in Hobart.<\/p>\n Just west of Hobart, in the Dyer, Saint John, Indiana area, more trees were uprooted and in some cases, sewage pipes and electrical lines were also pulled up.<\/p>\n Chopper7 flies over tornado damage in Merrillville, Indiana.<\/p>\n In Merrillville, video shows several homes destroyed, with missing roofs and walls.<\/p>\n There are also many downed trees, blocking roads and driveways.<\/p>\n The storm damaged the roof and windows at Andrean High School. Power lines were knocked down and into the street. Operations at the school have been canceled for the foreseeable future, officials said.<\/p>\n An Andrean employee named James was out assessing the damage Friday morning.<\/p>\n “I just think about the kids,” he said. “They are supposed to be here for practice and summer is starting and sports and school is starting in a couple of months.”<\/p>\n James said they are going to need tarps for the school as well as prayers.<\/p>\n “It’s a special place and we are going to rebuild and make it better,” he said.<\/p>\n According to town officials, multiple agencies from as far as Illinois are assisting as first responders search and assess the damage.<\/p>\n Officials want to remind the community to stay clear of any fallen utility lines or damaged utility poles.<\/p>\n In Chicago in the West Lawn neighborhood,<\/p>\n This is near 62nd and Lawndale in the West Lawn neighborhood.<\/p>\n It appears part of the roof of the Saint Nicholas of Tolentine School near 62nd Street and Lawndale Avenue may have been torn off.<\/p>\n Radar clocking winds of up to 100 miles-an-hour on the city’s South Side Thursday night<\/p>\n Cook County Radar<\/a> | DuPage County Radar<\/a> | Will County Radar<\/a> | Lake County Radar (IL)<\/a> | Kane County Radar<\/a> | Northwest Indiana Radar<\/a> Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — Cleanup across the Chicago area is underway after strong thunderstorms spawned at least two confirmed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[302768,23,236574,302417,236572,302766,237078,3,302767,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-699767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-302768","tag-america","tag-chicago-il-weather","tag-chicago-severe-weather","tag-chicago-weather-forecast","tag-chicago-weather-hourly","tag-chicago-weather-radar","tag-news","tag-tomorrows-weather","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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