Dangerous storms rake suburbs, head toward Indiana

Dangerous thunderstorms ripped through the suburbs Tuesday night. Heavy rains and strong winds damaged trees, canceled flights and prompted the National Weather Service to issue a severe weather warning for much of the evening.

“This is a DANGEROUS SITUATION,” the alert stated. “These storms are producing widespread wind damage across portions of the warned area.”

There were 73 flights canceled at O'Hare International Airport shortly before 6 p.m., and arriving flights were delayed by an average of 47 minutes, according to a report by ABC 7.

The storms passed on to Indiana later in the evening, leaving some suburban residents and village workers to deal with the damage. Around 23,000 ComEd customers in the northwest suburbs had their service affected, according to the electric company's outage map. Extensive tree and property damage was reported in Huntley and village officials decided to shut down the downtown area to all through traffic during the cleanup Tuesday night, according to a news release.

“We have called in all available personnel,” the release said. “Police, fire, public works, and building department personnel will likely be working through the night to address the downed trees and safety issues in the community.”