After a night of heavy rain and flash flooding, the Chicago area appeared to have dodged a bullet for second, expected round of showers and storms predicted for Thursday evening into early Friday.
The storm system that was expected to produce heavy rain split into two before reaching city, damping areas with showers overnight.
On Wednesday, high winds knocked down trees and power lines, leaving an estimated 15,000 customers without power in Chicago. City neighborhoods reported anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 inches of rain, and northwest Indiana saw up to 3.72 inches.
Lightning led to the deaths of two Gary men Thursday morning and left an infant in critical condition.
In suburban Lake Forest, lightning hit a tree and a house, causing the home to catch fire.
The owner of Elite Truck Rental and his staff spent the day cleaning up branches from the parking lot at Western and Fulton after a large tree fell on a truck Wednesday night.
A 25-year-old sewer worker died Wednesday evening when he was swept away by water during a thunderstorm.
Flooding slowed traffic to a crawl along the Eisenhower Expressway, with standing water also making it difficult to get through the Circle Exchange on the Kennedy Expressway.
Cars were seen stuck in flooded viaducts and a SCUBA team was called to check multiple cars at Sacramento and Carroll in Chicago.
Strong winds blew over a portion of a Union-Pacific freight train, blowing seven cars onto their side at Kedzie Avenue at about 8:30 p.m. The derailment happened on a branch line away from the Metra tracks and briefly halted nearby trains.
