Illinois town residents told to flee 'imminent' dam failure

CHICAGO - Thunderstorms with heavy rains and possible tornadoes rattled the Chicago area and elsewhere in the Midwest, leaving a dam near failure Tuesday in southern Illinois, cutting power to hundreds of thousands, and even sending weather forecasters scrambling for safety. A woman in Indiana died after a tree fell onto a home.

A dam near the town of Nashville, population 3,000, was in imminent danger of failure after heavy rain, officials said.

Darrah Sabo, deputy director of the Washington County Emergency Management Agency, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that about 300 residents live in the zone that is under evacuation orders. The homes are near the Nashville City Reservoir, about 55 miles southeast of St. Louis.

The National Weather Service said 5-7 inches of rain fell over an eight-hour period. Additional heavy rain was in the forecast. The service warned of potential "life-threatening flash flooding." An 11-mile stretch of Interstate 64 in the Nashville area was closed because of flooding.

Nashville, Illinois evacuation map. (FOX Weather / FOX Weather)

No injuries have yet been reported. A shelter was set up at the community center for displaced residents, emergency managers said.

As the storms swept through the Chicago area late Monday, employees at a suburban National Weather Service office had to pass coverage duties to a northern Michigan post for five minutes when storms swept through. The agency reported wind speeds in the region as high as 75 mph.

"We did have an area of rotation," meteorologist Zachary Yack said, referring to extreme rotating wall clouds. "And it kind of developed right near our office here in Romeoville, Illinois. ... We went and took cover. We have a storm shelter here."

A 44-year-old woman died in Cedar Lake, Indiana, in the southern fringes of the Chicago area, the Lake County coroner’s office said.

The weather service confirmed a tornado hit Des Moines, Iowa, as storms rolled through Monday afternoon and into the night. Police responded to calls about utility poles that snapped in two.

The storms then moved east into northern Illinois and the Chicago area, which saw tornado warnings and drenching rain. Tornadoes were reported along the line of storms that moved through the city, according to the weather service, though staff were still trying to confirm them Tuesday.

Carol Gillette said she heard a crash that sounded "like a bomb" as trees smashed cars and houses in Oswego, Illinois.

"I haven’t called the insurance yet. I don’t know where to start," Gillette told WBBM-TV. "This is the first time I’ve ever been through this. I’m just happy we are all alive."

By 10:30 a.m., 233,000 customers lacked power in Illinois, though the number was much higher hours earlier, according to PowerOutage.us.

The Chicago Fire Department said on the social media site X that there was only one serious injury in the nation’s third-largest city, a person who was hurt when a tree fell on a car.

In Joliet, Illinois, 35 miles southwest of Chicago, authorities said many roads were blocked by trees.

Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport reported 81 flight cancellations as of Tuesday morning, and Midway International Airport reported eight cancellations.

The storms also cut power to thousands in Ohio and Pennsylvania and caused damage to property, trees and power lines. No injuries were reported.