Worst Weather I've Seen In Quite A While In These Parts

And they say (which I believe) that it's only gonna get worse here and elsewhere in the Midwest as far as the flooding goes. To top that off we had some of the most wickedest thunderstorms Thursday afternoon I've witnesses in my days here as a Chicagoan as well in the northwest suburbs in which I reside.

In driving to work this evening at 10 pm Thursday, about 6 hours after the storms, I went 15 miles through 4 towns completely without power. And these are large suburbs mind you not little townships, as there are hundreds of thousands of residents involved just here. This is not even including Chicago city proper and other surrounding burbs.

That's covered in the second story I've posted below.

I am fortunately situated about 4 miles west of some pretty serious flooding and about 15 miles of a complete town underwater nearly called Dundee to the east, right in between the Fox River and The Des Plaines river. I have not been personally effected by the power outages nor the flooding either but everything around me is down and out sad to report. Hopefully this situation improves not only here but around the country as this is undoubtedly quite a mess that hasn't cost a terrible amount of life at least yet and is a very very serious situation without precedent.

Fox flooding is only going to get worse:

Daily Herald | "More than 10,000 sandbags have been distributed to Kane County homeowners bracing for some of the worst flooding the area has experienced in recent memory. 'Outside of the floods of '96, this is probably the worst I've seen so far along the Fox River,' said Don Bryant, director of the Kane County Office of Emergency Management. continued

Punishing storm socks suburbs

Daily Herald : There was no confirmed tornado Thursday afternoon, but the storm that blasted through the Northwest suburbs felt like a hurricane.

As residents emerged from their homes and workplaces after the all-clear, the sight was stunning. Strong trees were snapped, if not uprooted outright.

Roofs had been peeled from buildings. Workers heading home were bewildered by deep water that pooled on roadways, or stuck for hours on expressways that turned into parking lots.

At the height of the storm, drivers on area expressways pulled off to the side, unable to see more than a few feet ahead, their vehicles buffeted by gusts that reached 60 mph.

In West Chicago, the roof of an industrial building collapsed with as many as 40 workers inside. Seven people were sent to area hospitals.

In Mount Prospect, which was hit particularly hard, officials are calling Thursday's storm the worst in village history. Hundreds -- maybe even more than 1,000 -- trees were uprooted or broken, Fire Chief Michael Figolah said.

He added hundreds of wires were downed, railroad gates were broken and almost every intersection in the center of town or south was without power.

"We have never witnessed such devastation," Mount Prospect Mayor Irvana Wilks said Thursday night.

And it looks like people will need to be prepared for several days without power, Figolah said.

Besides the widespread lack of electricity -- as many as 310,000 Thursday night -- National Weather Service officials warned suburban residents to prepare for flooding, with one to two inches of rain drenching an already waterlogged area continued

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