Severe thunderstorms hammered the Chicago area Tuesday, leaving thousands without power, trees damaged throughout the region and viaducts and roadways flooded in several communities, including in Chicago.
In the city’s North Ravenswood neighborhood, trees were completely uprooted and branches were snapped, along with roadways left flooded by soaking rains.
Flooding also occurred underneath several viaducts along DuSable Lake Shore Drive, stranding several vehicles and causing travel headaches for drivers throughout the evening.
Standing water was also reported in several locations in the city.
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The severe weather also caused several local baseball games to be canceled, including a Chicago Cubs game and a Kane County Cougars game.
In suburban Evanston, at least eight boats were overturned when a strong thunderstorm ripped through the community, leaving multiple people swimming for safety on Lake Michigan.
The US Coast Guard was called in to rescue at least two swimmers, and there were no other injuries reported in the incident, according to authorities.
Local
As of 10 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 24,000 ComEd customers were without power after the storms. More than 10,000 of those customers were located in Cook County, with more than 3,500 more customers in Ogle County in the dark.
The utility company estimates that it will have 80% of outages restored by Wednesday morning, with the remaining outages rectified throughout the day.
The Chicago area will likely see more hot and humid conditions on Wednesday, with heat indices exceeding 105 degrees in some locations.
Showers and thunderstorms will once again be possible, according to forecast models.
