DES MOINES (News Nation) — Severe storms and winds of up to 100 miles per hours pummeled Illinois and Iowa Monday night destroying homes, blowing tiles off of rooftops and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
Hurricane force winds ripped across Iowa with winds ranging from 80 to 100 mph throughout Monday, News nation affiliate WHO reported.
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area. (Credit: Jennifer Pickering) 
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area. (Credit: Jennifer Pickering) 
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area. (Credit: Jennifer Pickering) 
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area. (Credit: Jennifer Pickering) 
Trees fell over after a severe storm in Des Moines. 
Trees fell over after a severe storm in Des Moines. 
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area. 
Widespread damage after storms hit the Des Moines area.
Fierce winds ripped away portions of the roof and peeled off most of the shingles of Buccaneer Arena, home of the Des Moines Buccaneers ice hockey team. The storm was classified as a derecho which is a severe thunderstorm complex that creates long paths of severe wind gusts more than 250 miles in length.
More than 125,000 MidAmerican Energy customers throughout the Des Moines area were without power as Monday evening.
Intense severe weather also rolled through the Chicago area Monday afternoon, leaving widespread damage. Several Tornado Warnings and Severe Thunderstorm Warnings were issued. Uprooted trees and debris lined the streets as city officials dealt with the Monday morning’s looting.
In northern Illinois, the National Weather Service reported a wind gust of 92 mph near Dixon, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Chicago, and the storm left downed trees and power lines that blocked roadways in Chicago and its suburbs. After leaving Chicago, the most potent part of the storm system moved over north central Indiana by late afternoon.
“The storm system as a whole is definitely beginning its decay,” said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini.
A derecho is not quite a hurricane. It has no eye and its winds come across in a line. But the damage it is likely to do spread over such a large area is more like an inland hurricane than a quick more powerful tornado, Marsh said. He compared it to a devastating Super Derecho of 2009, which was one of the strongest on record and traveled more than 1,000 miles in 24 hours, causing $500 million in damage, widespread power outages and killing a handful of people.
“This is our version of a hurricane,” Gensini said in an interview from his home about 15 minutes before the storm was about to hit. Minutes later he headed to his basement for safety as the storm took aim at Chicago, starting with its suburbs.
Gensini said this derecho will go down as one of the strongest in recent history and be one of the nation’s worst weather events of 2020.
News Nation affiliate WXIN in Indianapolis reported more than 700 severe weather reports throughout the Midwest.
News Nation affiliates WHO, WXIN and WGN contributed to this report.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
