Overview
- A fast-moving derecho that moved through the region Tuesday produced extreme winds, large hail, flooding and multiple tornadoes confirmed by the National Weather Service.
- The NWS confirmed several EF-1 tornadoes in south suburban Chicago and Glenwood Academy reported EF-2 damage to its campus, with the school seeking volunteers and donations for cleanup.
- Utilities reported massive outages early Wednesday with more than 146,000 ComEd customers and more than 274,000 NIPSCO customers without power as crews begin restoration.
- Multiple districts canceled or converted their first day of classes and warned schedules may change as administrators assess building safety and recovery needs.
- A fatal house explosion in Portage is under investigation and officials have not linked the blast to the storms while transit service in Gary remains suspended because of outages.