Flood Watch issued for Chicago area through Saturday morning with more storms overnight
There is a flood watch for most of the Chicago area, with flash flooding possible in several south and southwest counties, as more storms bring torrential ran Friday night into Saturday.
A Flood Watch has been issued for Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Will, Ford, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, and Ogle counties in Illinois and Benton, Jasper, Lake, Newton, and Porter counties in Indiana from 10 p.m. Friday through 10 p.m. Saturday.
The storms could cause flash flooding in Grundy, Kankakee and LaSalle Counties, according to CBS News Chicago First Alert meteorologists.
These are areas that have been hit hardest by this week's heavy rain, and still have more bouts of torrential downpours to come. Extraordinary amounts of atmospheric moisture will fuel tropical downpours overnight into Saturday morning.
Saturday afternoon brings drier weather for outdoor plans, but another round of torrential rain is expected Saturday night into Sunday morning Sunday afternoon may again bring a drier stretch.
Northwest Indiana power outages may last a week, NIPSCO says
Residents in Northwest Indiana may have to wait more than a week to get power back after a devastating outbreak of severe weather on Tuesday.
As of Friday 11 a.m. NIPSCO said nearly 185,000 customers are still without power. Officials said132,000 customers have had their power restored despite the continued severe weather.
NIPSCO reported that over the last 24 hours, power had been restored to more than 63,000 customers. Since restoration efforts began, more than 127,000 customers have had power restored.
There are currently more than 180,000 NIPSCO customers still without power. NIPSCO is expected to provide an update on the outages later Friday morning.
"Based on current damage assessments and restoration plans, NIPSCO expects to restore power to approximately 90% of impacted customers by Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 11:59 p.m. and complete restoration for 100% of customers by Friday, Aug. 21 at 11:59 p.m," NIPSCO officials said in a written release on Friday morning.
At the peak of this week's storms, more than 60% of NIPSCO's electric customers were without power, "making this one of the most significant outage events in company history."
Gov. Mike Braun said he signed a statewide emergency declaration Thursday, has contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance that he expects will take up to a week to arrive, and has also activated the Indiana National Guard to help with storm recovery and management in the northwest part of the state.
The National Guard is assisting with response efforts.
