Five people were injured, one of them critically, 16 homes were uninhabitable, at least 10 people have been displaced and at least 125 damage reports have been filed as the result of a “considerable” tornado that tore through Naperville late Sunday, officials said.
And that’s in just one of three southwest suburban communities hit by what meteorologists suspect was at least an EF-2 tornado — a ranking on the Enhanced Fujita scale — which goes from zero to five. An EF-2, should it be confirmed later Monday, would mean the tornado had wind speeds of 111 to 135 mph.
Matt Friedlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said there’s a chance the tornado — forecasters think it was a single funnel cloud that touched down multiple times in Naperville, Woodridge and Darien, in that order — may even be classified as an EF-3 once a team of meteorologists goes into the field to investigate its path and the damage it caused. An EF-3 is defined as a tornado with wind speeds of 136 to 165 mph.
“We suspect it was one tornado. We don’t know that for certain, but based on the nature of the information and what we know about the character of this event, that’s what we’re leaning toward,” Friedlein said around 7:30 a.m.
