Power outages persist more than 3 days after Illinois, Indiana tornado outbreak

Days after storms brought 13 tornadoes to Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana, utility crews were still working to restore power to customers who were still in the dark on Monday.

The storms that brought the tornadoes happened Thursday night, but damage was still easy to find across parts of the area on Monday, notably including the southwest suburbs.

One of the areas hit includes Bridgeview, where pieces of roofing remained scattered around an apartment building on 79th Street after powerful winds ripped through the area. Power has since been restored for many in the area, but the EF-2 tornado that swept through has left many displaced.

A resident of the building, Sandra Rincones, was sitting in her car waiting to grab things like medication from her unit.

"All you hear is ... this really loud noise," she said. 

She says while she lives on the second floor, she could hear the moment the roof got torn off the floor above her.

"On the third floor. The lady got like up in the up on top of the roof, like flew on top of the top of the roof, almost, and her husband grabbed her down, and she said, "Help, help, help," she said. 

Rincones says that the woman is doing fine. She added that a cat from the building is still missing and a little girl's arm was injured during the storm. The landlord of the building said it could be three months before residents are allowed back inside the building.

Meanwhile, just across the street from the building, Pedro Urbina says debris from the building came flying through his business windows.

"Glass all over on the floor and on the register," he said.

The National Weather Service has now confirmed 13 tornadoes from the Thursday night storm outbreak, including an EF-2 tornado that tracked from Hickory Hills toward Midway International Airport.

For days, utility crews have also been working to restore power after strong winds brought down trees, power lines, and utility poles across the region. ComEd said 674,000 customers lost power during the Thursday night storms, but more than 99% had had their power restored as of Monday morning.

In Northwest Indiana, NIPSCO said about 10,000 customers remained without power Monday morning.

"In a number of locations, we essentially had to rebuild parts of the electrical grid from the ground up," said Jeremy Smith of ComEd. "That includes replacing broken poles, rebuilding damaged sections of the system, and clearing extensive tree damage before power can be safely restored."

ComEd said crews as of Monday were in the final stages of restoration, while NIPSCO said some customers in Northwest Indiana could remain without power until Wednesday as repairs continue.

Meanwhile, the City of Naperville was helping with storm cleanup Monday after Naperville was hit with an EF-0 tornado on Thursday night. There will be a citywide bulk brush collection.

Residents need to place any brush and tree debris in the parkway in front of their homes by Monday morning. The brush does not need to be stickered, cut, bagged, or tied. Public works and contractor crews will go around for pickup through Saturday, June 27.

Back in Bridgeport, Urbina says his business was able to reopen since having power restored, but the next threat of potentially severe storms this week has him worried once again.

"Yeah, that's a little worrying, because you know there's damage on the roof that could create leaks, further damage on the water coming in, but I guess we'll see when it comes," he said.

Cook County emergency management officials are asking residents impacted by the storms to submit a damage assessment that can be found here.