<p>If anyone was watching the Bears/Ravens game, they probably saw the consequences of this storm unfolding. But while the game is on hiatus, we are getting all the local weather updates, and getting social media pics of damage down by Peoria. It looks pretty bad. Parts of towns just leveled. I have a feeling as the day rolls along, we’re going to get a lot more information regarding destruction that hasn’t been reported yet.</p>
<p>For the Midwest, this is quite unusual for mid-November!</p>
<p>Washington, near Peoria, seems to have been hit very hard.</p>
<p>They’re showing tornado reports in the double digits number. As it unfolds, we will see how many were duplicate reports and how many separate tornadoes there were. </p>
<p>We just got brief, small hail here (well, along with some wind, rain, lightning and thunder).</p>
<p>teriwtt-my son is out at Northwestern and I emailed him this a.m. to let him know about all the weather alerts for tornadoes today. Nonetheless, he and his idiot fraternity brothers, who generally seem to be intelligent people, :rolleyes: kept their plans for an outing this afternoon. I am so p*ssed off at him for joining in. They were driving somewhere to do an indoor sporting activity. Any idea if there were reports of tornadoes down in the Evanston/Chicago area? I know that the Bears game was suspended…</p>
<p>It was storming really bad here this morning but I think we’re going to miss the worst of it. </p>
<p>Stay safe, everyone.</p>
<p>momof3sons - the tornadoes seemed to have stayed south and west of Chicago, more toward Peoria, and like gloworm says Washington (sort of like a suburb of Peoria), Am seeing some pictures on the news right now of flooding on the Eisenhower expressway (which I doubt is anything BUT an expressway right now). </p>
<p>Have also seen pics of some hail that is baseball size. Again, this is November!</p>
<p>If they were indoors, I’m sure they’re fine.</p>
<p>Momof3- my S is also there and I don’t think it was as bad as it was out in the western burbs ( where I live) or O’Hare (where I am currently, retrieving bags from a cancelled flight). I’ve never heard of tornadoes THAT close to the lake. I’m sure he’s fine and yes fraternity boys are idiots :-)</p>
<p>teriwtt-thanks for the information as I am a little less aggravated now, but I am still really p*ssed off at him. ;)</p>
<p>Crazy weather day. It’s 89 degrees in Dallas. YUCK.</p>
<p>D at UChicago texted me about the tornado warning sirens blasting nonstop. OK now.</p>
<p>OMG, these images of Washington, Illinois are horrific.</p>
<p>[Tornado</a> touches down outside of Peoria, Illinois - CNN.com Video](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/weather/2013/11/17/nr-ardis-peoria-illinois-mayor.cnn.html]Tornado”>http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/weather/2013/11/17/nr-ardis-peoria-illinois-mayor.cnn.html)</p>
<p>I have a feeling that when we see daylight tomorrow, many more horrific images will emerge. So far I’ve only heard of one death. I will say, the weather people have been talking about this storm system since early yesterday, so hopefully most people were on alert and were ready to take shelter when it got bad.</p>
<p>Three deaths now from these storms.</p>
<p>An interesting story from Peoria (sounds like the woman was actually in premature labor):
</p>
<p>[Tornado</a> watch for Chicago after touchdown in Central Illinois - chicagotribune.com](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-forecast-warm-windy-and-stormy-weekend-20131116,0,3131638.story]Tornado”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-forecast-warm-windy-and-stormy-weekend-20131116,0,3131638.story)</p>
<p>Sadly, the death count has risen, and they are located in widely separated parts of the state.</p>
<p>I started an email tree around 11 as I was getting worried about family in Peoria, and Grundy and Will Counties. I was concerned that people would be sleeping in and not know to take shelter. Fortunately all are well, but man those many tornados did a lot of harm. I thought they were a little slow with alerts, but then we didn’t have anything worse than hail rain and wind.</p>
<p>I saw that one apartment complex in nearby Peoria has opened its doors to those in need. I won’t post the name of the complex, but here’s what it said on Facebook…</p>
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<p>I have a supervisor who is from that area and a former co-worker also from the area. The former co-worker is packing his car tomorrow and headed up there with supplies and looking to help out. Right now Washington, IL officials are basically saying “keep out” until they can make arrangements with FEMA and other disaster groups.</p>
<p>I am on the other side of the river from Brookport, the southern IL town which had several deaths (I think they said 3 on the morning news). Obviously, not as much destruction as the tornadoes north of us since it’s a small town. The Brookport tornado was on the KY side until it took a turn north and crossed the Ohio River about 8-10 miles from my house. It was a spooky kind of storm because there was no storm preceding the tornado and the sun had been shining for the first time all day within 45 minutes of the event. We had massive rain and hail following that part of the front. Unfortunately, it is not unusual in our area to have tornadoes. Feeling pretty lucky this morning.</p>
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<p>Life becomes bigger than the game sometimes. But sometimes the game can make a major impact on your life. It’s great to see the opposing team step up to help Washington as well.</p>