Extreme Weather in American Midwest-- from CBS News

CBS/AP/ November 17, 2013, 5:25 PM

At least 3 dead in Illinois as tornadoes, thunderstorms pound Midwest

East Peoria resident Billy Vestal evacuates with his daughter, Lillian Vestal, 3, after a tornado damaged the area near Chestnut Road in East Peoria, Il.,Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013. / Justin Wan,AP Photo/Journal Star

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Updated 7:15 p.m. ET

CHICAGOIntense thunderstorms and tornadoes swept across the Midwest on Sunday, killing at least three people and injuring several others in central Illinois communities, where the powerful winds uprooted trees, flipped over vehicles and flattened buildings.

The storms sent people across the region scrambling for shelter and even prompted officials at Chicago's Soldier Field to evacuate the stands and delay the Bears game.

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Late season tornado outbreak storms through the Midwest

Mark Styninger, the coroner of Washington County in Illinois, said an elderly man and his sister were killed around noon when a tornado hit their home in the rural community of New Minden.
A third person was killed in the central Illinois town of Washington, said Melanie Arnold of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. She did not have any details about the victim.
Around 30 people were injured in the town of Washington and nearby East Peoria, said Police Chief Brian Fengel at the Bartonville Police Department. He said the exact number and extent of injuries were not yet known.

One Washington resident said his neighborhood was wiped out in a matter of seconds.

"I stepped outside and I heard it coming. My daughter was already in the basement, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her, crouched in the laundry room and all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway and my house was gone," Michael Perdun said Sunday afternoon in an interview with The Associated Press on his cellphone. "The whole neighborhood's gone, (and) the wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house."

Chuck Phillips looks out at the destruction that tore off part of his roof and left houses around him destroyed after a tornado left a path of devastation through the north end of Pekin, Il.,Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013.

/ Fred Zwicky,AP Photo/Journal Star 

 

It appears that the same tornado struck three times -- in Washington, Pekin and East Peoria, said Chief Terry Capps of the Limestone Township Fire District. Property damage was reported in both East Peoria and Pekin, where the roof of a liquor store was blown completely off, Capps said.

But Washington sustained the worst damage, with many flattened houses. Capps said officials were going door to door to check on residents. The Illinois National Guard said it had dispatched 10 firefighters and three vehicles to Washington to assist with search and recovery operations. The Red Cross said it was setting up shelters.


Steve Brewer, chief operating officer at Methodist Medical Center of Illinois in Peoria, said that four or five people had come to the hospital seeking treatment, but he described their injuries as minor. He said another area hospital had received about 15 patients, but did not know the severity of their injuries.


Brewer said doctors and other medical professionals were setting up a temporary emergency care center to treat the wounded before transporting them to area hospitals.


"I went over there immediately after the tornado, walking through the neighborhoods, and I couldn't even tell what street I was on," Alderman Tyler Gee told WLS-TV. "Just completely flattened - some of the neighborhoods here in town, hundreds of homes."


About 90 minutes after the tornado destroyed homes in Washington, the storm darkened downtown Chicago.

As the rain and high winds slammed into the area, officials at Soldier Field evacuated the stands and ordered the Bears and Baltimore Ravens off the field. Storms rolled in along the lakefront shortly after kickoff, reports CBS Chicago. Fans were warned about a possible evacuation to the concourse with about 10 minutes left in the first quarter and were eventually told to leave their seats after the Ravens kicked a field goal with 4:51 left in the first quarter. Fans were allowed back to their seats shortly after 2 p.m., and the game resumed after about a two-hour delay.


Earlier, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications issued a warning to fans, urging them "to take extra precautions and ... appropriate measures to ensure their personal safety." NFL games in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh also could be affected by the rough weather.


No flights were allowed to leave or enter both O'Hare or Midway airports, the city's Department of Aviation told CBS Chicago. Flight delays of up to an hour were reported at both airports.

As of mid-afternoon, the heavy rains and high winds have left 75,200 people without power in the Chicago area, ComEd spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney said.

The storm system was racing east. In Indiana, officials said power was out at the Purdue University campus. A Starbucks in Lebanon, Ind., sustained serious damage, CBS affiliate WISH-TV in Indianapolis said.< /p>


"This is a very dangerous situation," said Russell Schneider, director of the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center. "Approximately 53 million in 10 states are at significant risk for thunderstorms and tornadoes."


The potential severity of the storm this late in the season also carries the risk of surprise.

"People can fall into complacency because they don't see severe weather and tornadoes, but we do stress that they should keep a vigilant eye on the weather and have a means to hear a tornado warning because things can change very quickly," said Matt Friedlein, a weather service meteorologist.

According to agency officials, parts of Illinois, Indiana, southern Michigan and western Ohio were at the greatest risk of seeing tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds throughout the day Sunday. Strong winds and atmospheric instability were expected to sweep across the central Plains during the day before pushing into the mid-Atlantic states and northeast by evening. Many of the storms were expected to become supercells, with the potential to produce tornadoes, large hail and destructive winds.


Friedlein said that such strong storms are rare this late in the year because there usually isn't enough heat from the sun to sustain the thunderstorms. But he said temperatures Sunday were expected to reach into the 60s and 70s, which he said is warm enough to help produce severe weather when it is coupled with winds, which are typically stronger this time of year than in the summer.


"You don't need temperatures in the 80s and 90s to produce severe weather (because) the strong winds compensate for the lack of heating," he said. "That sets the stage for what we call wind shear, which may produce tornadoes."


He also said that the tornadoes this time a year happen more often than people might realize, pointing to a twister that hit the Rockford, Ill., area in November 2010.

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