High winds downed trees and damaged structures across the Chicago area Friday, including blowing the roofs off a school and an apartment building.
Trees, power lines and even roofs proved to be no match for the wind on Friday. Courtney Sisk reports. High winds downed trees and damaged structures across the Chicago area Friday, including blowing the roofs off a school and an apartment building in the suburbs.
Gusts reached over 60 mph in some areas by 5 a.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service. The over 60 mph gusts continued throughout the morning, NWS said in an update around 10 a.m. Here's a quick update to the peak winds that we have observed with this event from our stations, though have received a few reports around the area up to 70 mph.Some tree branches and trunks landed in the street, blocking roads. Video showed a large fallen tree in west suburban Downers Grove blocking the 1200 block of Maple Avenue early this morning."My wife heard a crash, didn’t hear a crackling, just kind of a boom," he said."We came to see our tree, probably over 100 years old, laying in the street."As of 8:30 a.m., ComEd reported more than 23,000 customers were without power. Around that time, the company said their crews had already restored power for more than 55,000 customers throughout the morning. ComEd also noted strong winds came only days after more than 27,000 customers were impacted by the By 6:30 p.m., ComEd's outage map showed there were more than 1,700 active outages impacting over 11,500 customers. “The men and women of ComEd worked around the clock to, essentially, rebuild the grid in the highest impacted areas in two days following an EF3 tornado this week so customers were returned to service,” David Perez, executive vice president and COO of ComEd, said in a statement. “We will bring that same intensity to quickly and safely restore any impacted customers this weekend.”Some of the tree's branches landed on the roof, and others were touching nearby power lines. In Niles, part of the roof at Charles H. Walsh Academy, located at 6935 W. Touhy Ave., was blown off by the winds. Video showed a large portion of the roof resting on the side of the school, with debris scattered about the area. No students were in the building at the time; however, a few staff members were. No injuries were reported. The school was closed Friday due to the damage. It was not clear if it would re-open on Monday, but the school said it would provide updates as the situation is assessed in a post on social media. A man who grew up on the same block as the school told NBC Chicago he and his siblings encountered a similar situation at the same building decades ago when it was a public grade school.One of the people working to fix the school's roof, Dan Wilk with Roofing Source, said the roof shouldn't have blown off even in severe winds. "It’s not supposed to happen, even with winds of this caliber, it’s not supposed to happen," he said. In Elmhurst, an apartment building on the 100 block of Fellows Court had its roof partially blown off by the strong winds.
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