Jasmine Murillo was away from her home at a doctor’s appointment when severe storms swept through her Lansing home of 10 years on Monday. Winds tore the roof off her home. The walls collapsed. The place where all five of Anaya’s children took their first steps was gone in an instant.
“You never think it’s going to happen to you,” Murillo said. “You leave the house one day, and you have your whole day planned out, ‘I’m going to come home, I’m going to cook’…. But then you come home, and you don’t have a home.”
On Tuesday, National Weather Service workers confirmed that an EF-1 tornado hit Lansing as severe thunderstorms ripped across Chicagoland and northwest Indiana on Monday, pelting the region with up to 4 inches of rain and tennis ball-sized hail.
The weather survey crews also confirmed EF-0 tornadoes swept through Glen Ellyn and Orland Park. A tornado also left EF-1 damage in Country Club Hills, Hazel Crest, Harvey, and Homewood, officials found.
“I just can’t believe this happened to us,” Murillo said. “I don’t think any tired mother deserves this. No one deserves this.”
In some communities in southern Cook County, winds whipped upward of 80 miles per hour, said Brett Borchardt, senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service.
The storms, which came in two separate bursts, caused severe and widespread damage. In Rogers Park on the city’s North Side, large trees lay uprooted. Throughout the suburbs, entire roofs were ripped from homes and businesses.
The storms also proved deadly. In Downers Grove, emergency crews Tuesday evening recovered the body of a missing contract worker who had been working on “a large-diameter pipe rehabilitation project” when the storms hit, officials said. Another worker who had also been working in the sewer system was rescued the day before. Officials said that worker was in good condition.
In Tinley Park, officials were investigating whether the death of a woman found in a car that went into a pond was related to the storm. Village Administrator Pat Carr said the body of a 30-year-old woman was recovered after emergency services were called at 6:30 p.m. Monday.
Monday’s weather saw a slew of warnings and watches take effect throughout the city, collar counties and northwest Indiana. Storms grounded flights, suspended public transportation and sent those outside seeking immediate shelter. By Monday evening, nearly 320,000 customers were without power, according to ComEd.
Nearly 24 hours after the storms initially hit, around 170,000 ComEd customers remained without power as of noon Tuesday. The outages were widespread across the region, according to ComEd’s power outage map.
Clean up underway throughout south and southwest suburbs following Monday’s storms
Damage was widespread throughout Chicagoland, with 311 Chicago receiving more than 5,000 calls as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications. There had been around 2,300 reports of tree emergencies, and 600 calls about flooded basements alone.
The National Weather Service was surveying storm damage and identified possible tornado paths from Monday’s storms, including at the Interstate 294 and Interstate 80 junction near Hazel Crest, Country Club Hills and Markham, and in Orland Park and Orland Hills, meteorologist Kevin Doom said Tuesday morning.
The reports followed several tornado warnings issued Monday in Cook and Will counties. Last month, the state officially broke the record for most tornadoes in a year. Experts say this pace is not normal, with Illinois experiencing an average of 54 tornadoes annually between 1990 and 2020.
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Tinley Park resident Debbie Gonzalez said she took shelter in her basement about 2 p.m. Monday. As of Tuesday morning, the roads around her home on Valley View Drive were still piled with fallen branches.
“I usually don’t go in the basement, sometimes I think they overreact, right?” Gonzalez said. “We went in the basement, and we came out like 20 minutes later, and this is what it looked like. I mean, all this stuff was in the middle of the street. You couldn’t even walk.”
Severe weather emergencies are not uncommon this time of year because of the heat and humidity, which make the atmosphere more unstable, according to Borchardt.
“When we have those stifling humidity values, it’s like pouring gasoline on a fire when it comes to instability, and those big storms feed off of the instability,” Borchardt said.
Though temperatures were expected to be much calmer Tuesday, reaching a high in the mid-70s, weather officials warned of high waves along Lake Michigan beaches and to take precautions while swimming. The summer months are not over yet, and neither is the possibility that this will not be the last severe storm to impact Chicagoland in 2026, officials said.“We can still get another storm like this before the end of the year, so there’s never a bad time to make sure you have a weather preparedness plan, know where warnings are issued for your area and have multiple ways to get those warnings,” Borchardt said.
Lake County Department of Transportation crews and the signal contractor were out Tuesday continuing to work to clear debris and restore traffic signals, some of which remained flashing or completely dark, a county representative said.
Power outages Monday had left many traffic signals on the eastern side of the county in flash mode, the representative said, and roadways had flooded — although the water had largely receded Tuesday.
Waukegan was hit hard Monday, and crews were working Tuesday to clear debris and deal with downed trees and power lines, according to a city post on social media.
Waukegan Ald. Victor Felix said the storms had taken off the roof of an apartment building, affecting 17 or 18 units and “leaving many families uncertain about what would happen next.”
Felix praised the community for coming together in the aftermath, including connecting residents with resources and finding places to stay for the night.
“Days like today remind us that while storms can damage buildings, they cannot break the spirit of a community that stands together,” he said in a social media post. “Waukegan is at its strongest when we support one another.”
In northwest Indiana, the Indiana Dunes State Park was hit hard by the storms, with felled trees and damaging debris. The nature center and gift shop were closed Tuesday and access to restrooms limited. All locations within the park were without power.
At the park on Monday, the Oak Hills High School boys and girls cross-country teams had stepped off the bus to a tornado warning, recounted head coach Paige Brunner.
The teams, which traveled from Converse, located between Noblesville and Fort Wayne, sheltered at the main beach house. When the coast seemed clear, the group started setting up tents for their weeklong camping trip, which includes trail running and team bonding, Brunner said.
The campsite was mostly set up when another tornado warning went off and a tree fell on the back of a tent with two boys inside. The boys were able to get out unharmed, the coach said.
Then, two more trees fell and landed on four tents, ruining them, Brunner said. Ultimately, the teams spent the night at a hotel in Michigan City, he said.
The students have been resilient, Brunner said, and they will stay the rest of the week. He said he appreciated the park staff and Department of Natural Resources for their help during the storms.
“It was an eventful day one to say the least,” Brunner said. “We lost five tents, a few air mattresses … but thankfully everyone is safe.”
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In Lansing, about 230,000 residents remained without power as of 6 a.m. Tuesday, down from 530,000 on Monday, the village said in a social media update. The village asked residents to report fallen trees for public works staff to remove at 708-895-7150.
Murillo, 30, was one of the Lansing residents on 192nd Place whose homes were devastated by storms. She and her five children, the oldest of whom is 9 years old, were away from home at the time of the storms and are unharmed.
Now she is focused on rebuilding. Homeless, she is living in a hotel, looking to get clothes and toys for her kids. Her sister, Jessica Anaya, has started a GoFundMe page to help, which as of Tuesday afternoon had raised around $5,000 to buy basic necessities for the family.
“She lost everything,” Anaya said. “I’m just thankful that she’s alive.”
baiduhai’s Deanese Williams-Harris, Daily Southtown’s Evy Lewis and Olivia Stevens, Lake County News-Sun’s Joseph States and Post-Tribune’s Alexandra Kukulka and freelancer Doug Ross contributed.