A line of powerful thunderstorms swept across the upper Midwest Monday, grounding hundreds of flights at Chicago's airports and cutting power to more than half a million homes and businesses in the region. The National Weather Service reported extensive damage to trees, traffic signals, power lines and structures across the greater Chicago area, but a spokesman told AFP no injuries had been reported.
At 9:35 am (1430 GMT), more than 100 flights had been cancelled at busy O'Hare International Airport, said Karen Pride of the Chicago Department of Aviation, adding none of the airports had experienced power outages. The Chicago Department of Aviation reported delays of 45 minutes for flights coming in and out of O'Hare, and 50 minutes for Midway Airport, located on the city's south-west side.
But flight tracking websites, including flightstats.com, reported significant departure delays at O'Hare, in some cases up to two hours. Energy company Commonwealth Edison reported some 700,000 customers had lost power and had already restored service to 121,000, spokesman Tommy Hernandez told AFP. This may be the worst storm-related outage in the company's history, he added.
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