A woman in Indiana died after a tree, uprooted by an extreme storm, fell on her house Monday night, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
This was not the only occasion when a tree struck a house Monday due to the heavy rain and wind.
“We kind of heard a gust of wind that came up quick and we decided — my uncle decided — that we’d all go into the basement,” Mihajlo Jevdosic, a 16-year-old Illinois resident, told the outlet. “And as we went in the basement, we heard a big thump and the tree fell on the house.”
The derecho — an intense series of thunderstorms with widespread gusts of wind — besetting the Midwest produced wind gusts traveling over 100 miles per hour, according to AccuWeather. The wind at Camp Grove, Illinois, registered at 105 miles per hour, a speed frequently detected in Category 2 hurricanes, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Americans Wake Up To ‘Extreme’ Weather Warnings)
A line of powerful thunderstorms hammered the Midwest on Monday, leading to at least one fatality as winds howled over 100 mph. https://t.co/88YN8AMJSQ pic.twitter.com/yb8gmiMCsu
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) July 16, 2024
As many as ten tornadoes were reported throughout the greater Chicago area alone, according to CBS. One tornado was said to touch down less than two miles from the Chicago O’Hare International Airport where thousands were dangerously stranded on the tarmac, according to a student meteorologist.
Winds at O’Hare International Airport approached up to 62 miles per hour, according to a tweet by AccuWeather.
Destructive winds and tornado warnings accompanied powerful storms that swept through Chicago on Monday.
Winds at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport gusted up to 62 mph. https://t.co/IPvd113SMs pic.twitter.com/5m7NfPThYm
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) July 16, 2024
Footage captured at the airport showed outdoor furniture, including reclining chairs, tossed in the winds. One of the chairs was in a pool. The howl of the wind was audible in the footage.
Extreme weather conditions have left over a hundred thousand without power, as shown by poweroutage.us. Authorities ordered hundreds of Illinois residents to evacuate due to water from the storm overtopping a dam, according to the AP.
Northern Illinois was the most impacted region as it accounted for almost 75 percent of the 340,000 reported power outages Tuesday in the Midwest, AccuWeather reported. Alex Haglund, a Washington County Emergency Management Agency spokesperson, told the AP that a woman said she had to wade home through waist-high water levels.
