2 tornadoes touched down in Chicago on Sunday, one in west suburbs, NWS says
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Three tornadoes touched down in the Chicago area Sunday night, including two on the city's South Side, the National Weather Service confirmed.
Two of the tornadoes, which registered an EF rating of 0, touched down somewhere on the South Side, although the NWS did not give a precise location for either. On Sunday night, the NWS issued a tornado warning for some parts of the city, including Bridgeport, Bronzeville, and Back of the Yards.
Air raid sirens sounded in downtown Chicago as the tornado warning was called Sunday night.
CBS News Chicago photographer Alfredo Roman spotted branches in the street at 16th and Halsted streets in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, while Irika Sargent reported large trees down in Lincoln Park.
Trees also came down around the East Lakeview area. Social media photos showed a tree down blocking Broadway at Surf Street, and a tree and a light pole down on Inner Lake Shore Drive near Hawthorne Place.
Meanwhile, a video posted to the Chicago subreddit showed the contents flying out of a dumpster—and the dumpster itself taking off gliding along a concrete surface behind a building—as an intense wind gust hits. The Reddit user who posted the video identified it as being in Irving Park.
The other EF 0 tornado touched down in far west suburban Elburn in Kane County.
An EF 0 tornado has estimated wind gusts of 65 to 85 miles per hour.
A tornado warning was issued briefly for downtown Chicago and other central areas late Sunday night as a round of dangerous storms pounded their way through the area—taking down trees and leaving floods in the process.
The tornado warning had been scheduled to run until 11 p.m. but was dropped by 10:50 p.m.
"It was a whole mess"
On Monday, the cleanup was under way in parts of the city touched by the storms.
"A lot of tree branches coming down and a lot of wind," said Jessica Becerra, a Gage Park resident, describing the damage.
Along 54th Street east of Lawndale, light poles were ripped out of the ground and trees were uprooted, toppled and snapped. Some had landed on cars like one that hit a van owned by Rafael Grande.
"Last night it was a big storm," Grande said. "The big storm passed. I heard a lot of noise in my house. It got a little damage, but not too much, but my van is completely damaged."
Grande took it upon himself to grab an electric handsaw to being removing portions of the tree so he could save his van. His son said they were inside watching a soccer game at the time.
"I literally felt like it was a tornado that passed by here," Rafael Grande Jr. said. "It was a whole mess."
Becerra said she had been without power since about 10:30 p.m. on Sunday.
"We're the only home in this area without power, which is absolutely insane because all you heard was a ton of tree branches coming down," she said.
ComEd arrived in the afternoon to restore her power. The company has been working since Saturday to restore power to more than 130,000 customers impacted by storms.
About a mile away at Midway Airport, high winds pushed a Southwest aircraft into a jet bridge.
