More than 60,000 without power in suburbs
More than 60,000 customers remained without power in the Northwest and West suburbs as of 8 a.m. after strong storms whipped through Friday afternoon.
ComEd's outage map showed the Northwest suburbs were the hardest-hit. More than 37,000 were without power there as of 1 a.m., especially in an area centered on Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows, Palatine, Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights and Wheeling.
More than 63,000 were without power in all of Cook County. The North suburbs, centered around Glenview and Northbrook, had more than 20,000 without power.
In Kane County at 1 a.m., more than 10,000 were without power, especially in Elgin, and East and West Dundee.
Lake County had nearly 5,000 without power at 1 a.m.
DuPage and McHenry counties suffered little damage and had few power outages.
Trees and power lines were blown down in Palatine, Elgin and other areas.
In Des Plaines, a building addition under construction collapsed, injuring four workers and one firefighter, authorities said.
The accident at 1500 Rand Road occurred at the height of storms that quickly moved through the Northwest suburbs about 3 p.m.
Fire Chief Alan Wax said the roof and one wall of the building addition collapsed, and scaffolding set up next to the building fell on construction workers.
Firefighters were responding to a separate call when they were waved down by those at the construction site.
None of the workers had to be dug out from building rubble, but one worker did suffer serious injuries. He was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge for treatment, Wax said.
Two other workers were also taken to Lutheran General with minor injuries, and one worker was taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights with minor injuries.
A firefighter also suffered minor injuries.
The addition was being built onto an auto transmission shop. A crew was being called to the scene late Friday afternoon to fence in and secure the site.
Though the timing of the building collapse coincided with the storm, authorities were still investigating an official cause, Wax said.
In Schaumburg, all the walls of a new Chick-fil-A restaurant under construction were blown over by the storm on Barrington Road just north of Schaumburg Road. Schaumburg police Sgt. John Nebl said none of the construction workers were injured and the incident wasn't even called in to the fire department.
The damage to Elgin's city-owned trees is the worst in years, possibly decades, City Manager Sean Stegall said in a Facebook post. Several windows at the Hemmens Cultural Center were blown out, Elgin officials said, but no injuries were reported. Only the night's First Fridays Improv was canceled.
“The city intends to hire contractors to assist city crews in the cleanup process, starting immediately,” Stegall said. “We thank all of our residents for their patience as we work through the aftermath of this storm, together.”
Calls for downed lines were being reported all night, the city said. ABC 7 Chicago showed power lines holding up a fallen tree.
The city said main roads would be cleared of trees and fallen power lines before crews move on to side streets. The city said it will also implement a brush and tree limb pickup.
Elgin Area School District U-46 officials said some school buses dropping off students near Ronald D. O'Neal Elementary School and on the west side of Elgin couldn't reach students' homes because of a downed power line. Those buses returned to their schools, and parents were asked to contact their local schools.
A tree fell onto a car at the Libertyville Metra Station, trapping the driver, but the driver was not hurt, fire officials said.
A tree was also reported down on Butterfield Road just north of Route 176, leaving heavy traffic delays. Deerpath Road near Route 41 was shut down due to water on the roadway.
Metra halted trains on the Union Pacific West Line because of the storm. But trains were moving for the afternoon rush hour.
• Daily Herald staff writers Christopher Placek, Elena Ferrarin, Travis Siebrass, Neil Holdway, Eric Peterson and Steve Lundy contributed to this report.