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.
Thick tree branches, and in some cases full trees, were knocked down across the region by high winds that prompted a high wind warning for the entire Chicago area from late Thursday night until 4 p.m. on Friday.
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.
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.
Mike Diedrich, a nearby homeowner, said his wife heard a “boom” when the tree fell.
“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.”
Some trees fell on and around houses and others landed on power lines, prompting power outages across the region.
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 EF3 tornado that touched down in Kankakee County Tuesday.
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.”
Video showed a large tree fell close to a house in Lombard on the 500 block of Phillips Court.
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.
A “tornado drill went off, everybody sheltered and they heard the roof get pulled off,” he said.
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.
Wilk said Roofing Source has gotten “a lot of phone calls between the hail, the rain, the wind” this week.
In Elmhurst, an apartment building on the 100 block of Fellows Court had its roof partially blown off by the strong winds.
Video showed debris from the roof scattered around, with some roughly 50 feet from the building.
The high winds also prompted an “equipment outage” at Chicago’s O’Hare airport that led to hundreds of delayed flights.
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