High winds knock out power to thousands, delay flights at O'Hare, damage roofs across Chicago area

Strong wind gusts tore through the Chicago area on Friday, knocking out power to thousands, taking down trees, and even tearing the roof off of a north suburban school.

A High Wind Warning was in effect between 1 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday, as wind gusts reached as high as 60 mph. That warning has since been downgraded to a wind advisory, which is in effect until 7 p.m., with gusts of up to 50 mph expected.

The winds caused delays averaging more than an hour at O'Hare International Airport.

As of 4 p.m., ComEd was reporting more than 2,000 outages affecting more than 21,000 customers. ComEd said they have restored power to more than 55,000 customers who lost power due to high winds. Some of Friday's outages appear to be related to severe storms on Tuesday, but many others appear to be a result of Friday's damaging winds.

James Fisher couldn't believe it when he saw a twisted heap of mangled metal and debris seemingly scraped off the roof of his alma mater, Charles H. Walsh Academy, in Niles.

"It looks almost 50% of it is gone. I thought it was a trailer or something that got blown around, but no, it's the roof," he said.

The 56,000-square-foot building was renovated just a few years ago, but the exact age of the roof was unclear.

Local roofer Dan Wilk said the wind must have been incredibly strong to pull the massive mixture of metal, insulation, fasteners, and plates to the ground.

"The edge metal may have failed just form the high winds. It probably got ripped off, and then there was just a gap underneath there, so then that way that air was just able to pull right underneath it and that force just ripped it right off," he said.

Wilk said he's never seen anything quite like it.

"I've seen roofs ripped off from tornadoes, and otherwise, but not quite like this. This is new," he said.

Ironically enough, there was a tornado in Niles almost exactly 50 years ago — March 12, 1976.  A 15-mile-long EF2 tornado pulled the roof off Walsh Academy then, too.

"The roof was pulled off by a tornado in almost an identical fashion," Fisher said. "I couldn't believe it happened again. That really surprised me. You'd think they would strengthen it, or say, 'Hey we had a tornado rip the roof off, lets fix it.' Well."

The roof of an apartment building in west suburban Elmhurst also was damaged by the winds,

Meanwhile in Lincolnwood, downed trees blocked streets and damaged cars and houses. Even street signs took a beating.

Police also shared photos of crews removing a large tree that blocked the train tracks in Lake Forest.

Back in Niles, crews started to assess the damage on Friday afternoon, but the winds hampered some of their progress.

"It's unfortunate, but at least we're here to help," Wilk said.

It was such a windy day, some Chicagoans said they were extra thankful for the leash while walking their dogs.

Holding her pup, Marty, tight, Tara Nesser said the high winds quite literally almost blew him away.

"We were actually walking down that street, and there was like a wind tunnel, and he started to blow away," Nesser said. "He literally was, like, not totally picked up, but pulled in one direction, and I had to pull him back. … I definitely have not had a situation where it's been so windy he started to blow in a different direction. That was new."

Those same high winds blew out the glass door at a North Side apartment building. Management didn't want to talk to CBS News Chicago, but had to warn residents about the revolving doors that were destroyed.

In the Hermosa neighborhood, a massive downed tree landed on at least one car and blocked off the street for hours.

"I just heard a boom and didn't know what it could possibly be," Kingsley Weaver said.

Winds also knocked down a street sign at the corner of Lincoln and Addison.

Some people in Chicago said they almost lost furniture on their balconies due to the wind.