At least 4 tornado touchdowns confirmed in northern Illinois

No one was hurt.

Four people were injured, local police said, but everyone is expected to make a full recovery.

Several communities in IL were cleaning up wreckage on Thursday following a series of tornadoes that destroyed homes, smashed vehicles and trapped residents a night earlier, weather officials said.

The NWS reported another tornado touched down, near the northern IL cities of Amboy in Lee County and Earlville in LaSalle County.

A northwestern IN town buffeted by high winds has declared a state of emergency. Authorities are warning people to avoid the area.

Almost 50 families sought refuge at an emergency shelter established at a Brookston church, Red Cross volunteers said. Rauner says IL is “fortunate things are not worse”. No immediate injuries were reported.

As of 5 a.m. Thursday, ComEd reports 5,700 outages.

The Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said it had increased staffing at its customer call center and scheduled extra work crews.

Jeff Maierhofer tells WLS-TV that his farm suffered extensive damage Wednesday when the storm hit the village about 70 miles southwest of Chicago. He says everyone is safe “but there’s a lot of damage”.

“Once we heard that the touchdown was close we notified dispatch [to set off the tornado sirens]”, Johnson said.

“Lines are down, trees are down, corn is flat everywhere”, he told the Chicago Tribune.

In at least two separate incidents, residents of Pontiac and Seneca reported being trapped inside a house and homes in a trailer park after twisters ripped through, Mosteiko said. No injuries were reported. Pontiac and Seneca are about 100 miles (160 km) southwest of Chicago.

The strong band of thunderstorms moving through forced a two-hour delay in Chile’s 2-0 victory over Colombia in the Copa America semifinal at Soldier Field, the home of the Chicago Bears football team.