Unconfirmed Tornado Touchdown in Northwest Indiana

Thousands of power customers left without electricity after storms packing high winds, hail, torrential rain pound area

Thousands of power customers in Northwest Indiana were without electricity early Monday morning after heavy rains and gusting winds lashed the area a day earlier.

Sunday's storms brought lightning and thunder as well as high winds that sent trees into power lines. One wind gust at Gary International Airport at about 7:20 p.m. clocked in at 78 miles per hour.

National Weather Service forecasters were looking into reports of a tornado touchdown near Rensselaer. 

In Hammond, firefighters had to rescue family members from their SUV after it got stuck in rising floodwaters created by the torrential rain. Crews put the family into a raft and pulled them to higher ground.

Major utility companies reported about 10,000 outages remained early Monday in northern Indiana. The most were in Porter and Lake counties.

Meanwhile, Vectren officials said fewer than 100 outages remained in the Evansville area from a Friday evening storm that caused some 50,000 outages amid widespread damage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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