A dam fails after rain, wind, tornadoes pound the Midwest. The Chicago area is cleaning up

BY MELISSA PEREZ WINDER, JIM SALTER AND ED WHITE
Updated 3:23 PM EDT, July 16, 2024

CHICAGO (AP) — Hundreds of people in a southern Illinois town were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as water rolled over the top of a dam, just one perilous result of severe weather that raged through the Midwest overnight with relentless rain and tornadoes and hit the Chicago area especially hard.

Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and even weather forecasters had to briefly scramble for safety. A woman in Indiana died after a tree fell on a home Monday night.

“We kind of heard a gust of wind that came up quick and we decided — my uncle decided — that we’d all go into the basement,” said Mihajlo Jevdosic, 16, in Norridge, Illinois, where residents swapped stories of the storm and watched a crew clear a tree. “And as we went in the basement, we heard a big thump and the tree fell on the house.”

Water overtopped a dam near Nashville, Illinois, and first responders fanned out to ensure everyone escaped safely. There were no reports of injuries in the community of 3,000, southeast of St. Louis, but a woman said she was in water up to her waist in her home, said Alex Haglund, a spokesperson for the Washington County Emergency Management Agency.

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