Storms packing high winds cause damage in Valley
Police and fire crews across the Fox Valley juggled hundreds of calls about power outages, downed lines and lightning strikes Monday evening as a series of storms rolled through after 7 p.m.
A home on Prairie Street in Aurora was damaged when wind uprooted a 100-foot maple tree, which crashed into the house, ripping off parts of the gutter and shattering a first-floor picture window.
Earlier Monday as storms rolled through the area, lightning struck a home in the 500 block of North May Street in Aurora on the near West Side, starting a fire that made the house uninhabitable.
In St. Charles, 70 people were evacuated from St. Charles North High School when wind gusts blew off "significant" portions of the roof and damaged the HVAC system, Assistant Fire Chief Joe Schelstreet said. Fire crews stayed on the scene for hours, securing the roof and moving furniture and belongings away from the gaping holes.
In Batavia, firefighters battled a barn fire at 2S467 Bliss Road, apparently caused by a lightning strike.
Meanwhile, occupants of a house at 2718 Vicksburg Lane in Aurora reported part of a wall blown out by the storm, said Battalion Chief Ed Oros of the Aurora Fire Department.
"They came up from the basement and it was just gone," he said
"Our phones are ringing off the hook," an Aurora police dispatcher said.
Wind gusts up to 70 mph were recorded in Aurora, while funnel clouds actually touched down in Hampshire and Carol Stream, said meteorologist John Burris with Weather Command.
"This is one of the most prolific storms we've seen in a while," he said.
As of 10 p.m., 200,000 customers in Northern Illinois were without power, including 6,800 in Aurora and 3,500 in North Aurora, two of the hardest-hit areas, ComEd representative Pam Anton said.
In North Aurora, a manhole cover blew off on Lincolnway, but fire crews were able to get it reaffixed, a firefighter said. The major thoroughfare was also reportedly shut down briefly because of fallen wires and excess water.
Elsewhere in the Fox Valley, power outages, downed tree limbs and smoking transformers were widespread. Oros said that Aurora received half a dozen fire alarm calls that turned out to be smoking wires because of the storms.
The storms snarled traffic across the area, with trees and wires littering the streets and traffic signals without power. Signals were out at several major intersections, including Route 59 and Diehl Road in Naperville, just south of the East-West Tollway, and Orchard Road and Indian Trail in Aurora.
In Aurora, wires and trees were reported down at Sixth Avenue and State Street. Nearby, at Ray Moses and Wyeth drives near Phillips Park, three trees had fallen, a police officer said. Damage also was reported on Downer Place near the railroad crossing.
Despite the widespread damage, no injuries were reported as of late Monday. One man called police from inside a storage facility, saying he might be trapped there overnight because the locks wouldn't operate without power.
The storms appeared to be dying down by late evening, Weather Command's Burris said, with scattered rain continuing through the evening.
Fox Valley forecasts for today included scattered showers with possible storms forming by evening, but nothing on the scale of Monday's barrage.
"The worst is over," Burris said.
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