A person died in a suspected house explosion in Indiana as furious storms moved through the Midwest on Tuesday, bringing at least two tornadoes to Illinois and winds that overturned a train car elsewhere, officials said.The death in Indiana happened during a blast and fire in Portage, a city around 30 miles southeast of Chicago, with firefighters delayed by the large damage and debris from the storm, police said.The weather is suspected of playing a role in the fire, which occurred at around 12:20 p.m., but the cause is still under investigation, police said.Police Capt.Rob Maynard, who said he has lived in Portage for 50 years, at a news conference called the storms “probably the most severe weather event that any of us here can remember.” “When this call came in, everything was breaking free,” Fire Chief Chris Crail said at the news conference.
Finding a path to the location with the number of trees and power lines down was difficult, he said.Police Chief Mike Candiano said there were so many trees blocking roads that several officers parked a mile away from the home and ran toward it to try to respond.“It seemed that every road had a tree down,” he said.In Illinois, there were two confirmed tornadoes near Chicago, the National Weather Service said: one in southern Cook County and a second in eastern Will County.
Both had damage consistent with EF-1 tornadoes, it said.Over 1 million electricity customers across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee were without power Tuesday evening, according to tracking website poweroutage.us.Most of those were in Ohio and Indiana, according to the site.Utility provider AEP said that the Columbus, Ohio, area saw wind gusts of more than 80 mph and trees falling on power lines.
It said it had more than 2,000 workers trying to restore electricity, including crews from other states.Response teams have witnessed “disaster-like conditions” in Columbus, Ohio’s most populated city, Mayor Andrew Ginther said at a new...