Thousands without power in Illinois, Indiana after overnight storms cause widespread damage

Storms overnight have left thousands without power across Illinois and Indiana on Thursday morning. 

Crews are working to address the outages after storms downed trees and power lines.

NIPSCO is responding to over 21,000 customers affected by outages. ComEd is working to restore power to over 2,600 customers.

Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings were in effect throughout the night on Wednesday for counties across Illlinois nad Northwest Indiana. 

Gary, Griffith, and Merrillville were among the hardest hit areas in Indiana. Over 6,000 NIPSCO customers are without power in Gary. 

Large trees were downed near Griffith, just missing a church. 

This comes over two weeks after an EF-2 tornado ripped through Merrillville and neighboring areas in Indiana, leaving widespread damage.