Second Round Of Storms Cause Destruction In Oak Lawn Area

OAK LAWN, IL—Like a boxer who gets up after being knocked down in the ring, another round of severe storms pummeled the south suburbs Thursday night, blowing roofs off buildings and downing tree limbs and power lines.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the area at 8:17 p.m. Thursday, about the same time the tornado sirens started going off. The severe thunderstorms producing straight-line winds were located along a line extending from La Grange to Palos Hills to Orland Park. Radar indicated rotation.

On Friday morning, NWS survey teams were looking at a corridor that stretches across north-central Illinois to the south of Chicago and into northwest Indiana that may have seen around a dozen tornadoes Thursday night.

Ben Basile, of Oak Lawn, shot this video of the tornado-warned storm approaching 95th Street and Central Avenue as his wife screamed at their dogs to get into the basement. Having chased our cat for ten minutes to get him in the cat carrier before heading to the Target parking garage, we totally understand. (Don’t worry, Ebony and Ford are okay.)

Courtesy of Ben Basile

Flying Roof

WGN reported 100 mph straight-line winds whipping through Oak Lawn Thursday evening after the alleged tornado. The storm ripped off the roof of an apartment building near 79th Street and Oketo Avenue. No injuries were reported.

No One Is Being Skipped

An estimated 175,000 ComEd customers remain without power from Thursday’s storms.

Many more residents are reporting being out of power since Wednesday’s first round. Mayor David E. Gilgenberg II of Burbank offered a few words of wisdom to area residents wondering why their neighbors’ power has been restored and theirs has not.

“The truth is that power restoration doesn’t work block by block. ComEd restores services by working from large transmission lines down to smaller distribution lines and individual feeds. Fixing one line may restore power to hundreds of homes at once, while a separate line serving your block may have different damage requiring a different crew or different equipment. No one is being forgotten. Every outage in the system, every address matters and crews are working multiple locations simultaneously … If your neighbors have power and you don’t, rest assured, yours is coming.”

Mayor David E. Gilgenberg II, Burbank

Related storm coverage:

- Bridgeview And Markham Courthouses Remain Closed Friday Due To Ongoing Power Outage

- Oak Lawn Parks Suffer Tree Damage, Closures

- Village Of Evergreen Park Provides Storm Updates, Power Slowly Being Restored

- Village Of Oak Lawn Issues Protocol For Reporting Tree Damage, Storm Cleanup, Power Outages

- After The Storm: Power Outages, Downed Wires And Road Closures Left In Storm's Wake

- Oak Lawn Pulling Together After Devastating Storms

- Palos Communities Clean Up After Storms, Wait For Power To Be Restored

- Oak Lawn Parks Suffer Tree Damage, Closures