Tornado outbreak rakes Midwest amid unusually strong June storm

By Meteorologists Mary Gilbert, Briana Waxman

(CNN) — A tornado outbreak with several destructive twisters tore through the Midwest Wednesday evening, leveling buildings and sending debris swirling high into the sky.

The storms also brought hail bigger than baseballs and damaging wind gusts of nearly 80 mph.

The regions’s threat for damaging storms came to an end Thursday morning, allowing people in its wake to start picking up the pieces the chaotic storms left behind.

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A powerful tornado tore through Illinois’ Effingham County for more than 20 miles Wednesday evening, damaging buildings and lofting debris. Footage obtained by CNN shows a home completely swept off its foundation and dumped into the road.

“You hear about it all the time, but it’s real devastation,” county resident Karl Jansen said, describing how the storm tossed a large commercial van into a field more than 400 yards away. “I couldn’t even tell what it was if I didn’t know,” he said of the mangled van.

There have been no reports of deaths or missing people, according to a news release from the Effingham County Sheriff’s Office. First responders received 14 calls involving homes, farms or businesses with heavy damage or collapse during and after the storms.

“Several agencies are still working to check for injured, clear the roads and power lines and assess the damage. Please do not venture into the heavily damaged areas just to look. There are still power lines down and roadways filled with hazards,” the release stated.

CNN has reached out to Effingham County Emergency Management for further information.

A tornado was also reported in the small village of Blue Mound, Illinois, about 30 miles east of Springfield. Drone footage obtained by CNN shows an elementary school with part of its roof missing amid scattered debris, with parts of a classroom visible. Elsewhere in town, trees snapped and fell on homes.

In nearby Macon, the National Weather Service reported power poles snapped off near a major highway.

In the Indiana town of Stinesville, a potent tornado caused a structure’s roof to collapse, and emergency officials worked to rescue people inside, Town Board President Scott McGlocklin told CNN Wednesday evening.

Besides Indiana and Illinois, tornadoes have been reported in Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin during the outbreak. As of Thursday afternoon, more than 82,000 customers were without power in those states according to PowerOutage.US.

This week’s storms add insult to injury for a weather-weary region that can’t seem to catch a meaningful break: A multi-day siege of storms last week produced more than 1,500 reports of wind, hail and tornadoes in the central United States.

Wednesday’s storms started early in the day when powerful wind gusts rolled through Iowa and northern Illinois in the morning. These storms produced a hurricane-force wind gust of 94 mph near Albion, Iowa — about 50 miles northeast of Des Moines, Iowa.

A BNSF freight train derailed near Monmouth, Illinois, Wednesday morning as those severe thunderstorms tracked through the area. The derailment appeared to be caused by powerful straight line winds, Monmouth Chief of Police Joe Switzer told CNN, but the cause is still under investigation. There were no injuries or spills reported. The storms also damaged some buildings and downed trees and power lines in Monmouth, according to Switzer.

Thursday’s forecast

Thursday’s severe thunderstorm risk shifted fully into the East by the early afternoon.

A Level 2 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms covers much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast through Thursday evening. The tornado threat in the East is minimal and is mainly confined to northern New England.

A few storms with damaging wind gusts are the primary threat for New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, and Boston during the day.

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CNN’s Kate S. Petersen, Taylor Romine and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.