The National Weather Service in Chicago reports that as many as 10 tornados appear to have formed as part of a strong, fast moving storm system that swept through the region late Monday, July 15.
Marla Youngblood of Homewood suspects her home might have been visited briefly by one of them, or at least by a circulation approaching tornado level.
“I heard a train sound,” she said.
The state of her back yard Tuesday morning seemed to corroborate her guess. Her trees and her neighbors’ trees were down. A fence along the south side of the yard collapsed. There was a gas grill and tumbled patio furniture piled near the house.
“None of this is ours,” she said. “It came from the neighbors.”
She and her husband, Scott, live near the intersection of Willow Road and Marshfield Avenue, and as of mid-morning Tuesday, downed trees and utility lines were blocking the street in all directions.
A block east, Indian Trails Park also was hit hard, with trees uprooted and large limbs scattered across the park, blocking the trails. Apollo and Flossmoor Parks also suffered damage, but nothing like Indian Trails, according to Doug Boehm, executive director of the H-F Park District.
On the other side of Homewood, in the Governors Park neighborhood, Matt Cloonan was in front of his home in the 2400 block of Spruce Road surveying the damage caused by two large trees that were uprooted by the storm and partially landed on his house and a neighbor’s.
From the street, he thought damage to the house looked like it might be relatively minor, certainly not as bad as it could have been.
A week ago, Cloonan decided to cut down an evergreen tree near his house and started to get the project going but then changed his mind because of the heat.
“If it wasn’t for that evergreen, it would have fallen right on the house,” he said of the larger tree. He said his wife and granddaughter were in the front room when the trees fell. “It could be a lot worse. Nobody got hurt.”
Many of the trees toppled in the storm were uprooted, reminiscent of the damage seen in August 2020 when a derecho storm hit Flossmoor hard.
Homewood Public Works Director Joshua Burman said Southgate and Governors Park neighborhoods appeared to be the worst hit. He also noted at mid-morning that the area of Cedar Road and Gladville Avenue was closed because of utility wires wrapped in a tree.
Homewood Assistant Fire Chief Steve DeJong said the fire department responded to more than 50 calls from 9 p.m. to mid-morning Tuesday.
“The calls were for wires down, alarm activations due to power outages and other storm related calls,” he said.
There were no reports of injuries due to the storm, he said.
Tornados
The NWS Chicago team reported on Facebook that in addition to 10 possible tornadoes, there were “dozens of circulations,” which had the potential to develop into tornadoes, making the storm system an especially dangerous one.
At one point shortly before 9:30 p.m. the NWS team had to turn over storm reporting to another station, posting on Facebook:
“We had to seek shelter from the tornado but are spinning back up after handing off warning responsibilities to NWS Gaylord temporarily. Continue to take these warnings seriously! Multiple tornadoes have been reported along this line of storms moving through the Chicago metro!!”
Power outages
Like the storm damage, power was out Monday night and into Tuesday in many places around Homewood and Flossmoor. It appears specific areas were hit, rather than widespread swaths.
Cloonan’s power was out, but a neighbor, Jennifer Wieland, who lives across the street, said power on her side was on.
Power was out in much of downtown Homewood, including village hall, which was closed Tuesday morning, but some businesses reported their power was restored.
Homewood-Flossmoor High School’s South Building lost power and the district announced that summer school classes were canceled Tuesday. However, activities were still held at the H-F North Building which had power. Parker Junior High in Flossmoor had power.
Homewood District 153 officials reported no damage to buildings, although Willow School did not have power Tuesday morning.
Flossmoor Public Library was open but suspended normal library services so it could focus on being a cooling center and place for people without power to gather and recharge devices.
Metra reported numerous delays and train cancelations on the Electric Line Monday night and into Tuesday morning because of wire problems caused by the storms.
At a news conference, ComEd officials said that at one point 430,000 customers were without power as a result of the storm. By 1 p.m. the company’s online outage map reported the number of customers without power was down to 161,550.
On ComEd’s Facebook page, officials noted that surveys of the storm damage have begun, with six damage survey teams fanning out across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana. “So far, we have 29 different paths of potential damage that we will be investigating today and in the coming days to identify potential tornado tracks.”
