About 35,000 homes in the Chicago area remain without power following severe thunderstorms Friday night into Saturday morning.
High-speed winds battered the city alongside frequent bursts of lightning. Wind speeds reached upward of 60 miles per hour between Friday night and Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service. They peaked at 81 miles per hour in Minooka, a village about 50 miles southwest of Chicago.
ComEd said 125,000 customers were affected by storm weather overnight. As of 6:30 a.m. Saturday, power had been restored in 90,000 homes.
ComEd expects to have power restored in 80% of affected homes by 12 noon Saturday. Most of the remaining outages will be resolved by 3 p.m. Sunday.
“There will be some localized areas with major damage that will take longer to repair,” ComEd representative Kristina Lynch said.
Damage to power lines was greatest in the southern and western segments of ComEd’s coverage area, Lynch said.
Many homes in southern suburbs, including the Oak Lawn and Tinley Park areas, were still without power by 9 a.m., according to the ComEd outage map.
Outages were also frequent near Rockford, Minooka and Kankakee.
ComEd is prioritizing emergency facilities, including police and fire stations and nursing homes, while conducting power repairs this morning. Residents who rely on lifesaving medical equipment such as ventilators, or who are in other life-threatening situations without power, can contact ComEd at 1-800-334-7661 (or 1-800-955-8237 for Spanish-speaking residents) to receive priority repairs.
While the National Weather Service has not identified any tornadoes in the Chicago area, survey teams will look for damage indicating tornado activity over the next several days, according to the NWS Twitter.
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Hailstorms were also recorded over Aurora last night, as well as between Rockford and Crystal Lake.
At O’Hare International Airport, 138 flights have been canceled for Saturday, with another 223 facing delays. Current delays are averaging about 15 minutes, with 125 flights Saturday expecting delays upward of 45 minutes.
At Midway Airport, four flights have been canceled for Saturday and 37 will be delayed. Delays are also averaging 15 minutes at Midway, with 11 flights delayed for longer than 45 minutes.
As Chicago residents sort through storm damage, a beach hazard warning will remain in effect until 7 p.m. Saturday night.
The National Weather Service expects rip currents along Lake Michigan beaches, which could be fatal even for strong swimmers. Beachgoers should also stay away from piers and jetties through 7 p.m.
Chicago residents faced a blistering heat wave ahead of the storm. Temperatures soared into the nineties on Thursday and Friday, peaking at 92 degrees around 5 p.m. Friday.
Cooler air patterns along Lake Michigan have begun to drive temperatures back down at least through Tuesday. Highs in the mid-eighties and lows in the mid-sixties are expected all next week.
