Midwest Darkness Spreads — Numbers Surge

Severe weather slammed Illinois and northwest Indiana, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands and sending tornado sirens across the region.

Quick Take

Severe storms cut electricity for more than 575,000 customers across Illinois and Indiana, according to Associated Press reporting syndicated by the Seattle Times.
ComEd said about 530,000 customers lost power, while Northern Indiana Public Service Company reported 61,000 outages at the peak.
Tornado warning sirens sounded in both states, and Chicago’s two major airports briefly stopped flights during the storm.
Later reports showed restoration work was still underway, with more than 80,000 people without power in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana.

Storms Trigger Wide Outages Across Two States

Severe weather cut power Tuesday in the Chicago area and northwestern Indiana as rain, wind, and storms swept across state lines. Associated Press reporting syndicated by the Seattle Times said more than 575,000 customers lost electricity in Illinois and Indiana. Another AP version said more than half a million people in the Chicago area and northwestern Indiana lost power as the storm line moved through the region.

ComEd chief operating officer David Perez said about 530,000 customers lost power from the weather systems hitting the region. Northern Indiana Public Service Company said 61,000 customers were without power at the peak in northwest Indiana. CBS Chicago later reported that ComEd said 674,000 customers lost power during the broader outbreak, showing how fast the total changed as the storms moved and restoration began.

Tornado Sirens, Flight Stops, and Damage Reports

Tornado warning sirens blared in Illinois and Indiana as the storm threat intensified. Chicago’s two major airports stopped flights for a time in the late morning, adding travel delays to the power losses. The National Weather Service warned of tornadoes and destructive thunderstorm winds in parts of northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, including the Chicago suburbs.

Local reporting said the storms left visible damage, with downed power lines, snapped trees, and outages spread across the Chicago area. NBC Chicago said more than 80,000 residents still lacked electricity after the storms, with ComEd and NIPSCO both reporting large restoration efforts still in progress. That left many families dealing with spoiled food, dark homes, and another round of severe-weather alerts only days later.

Why the Outage Numbers Kept Changing

The outage figures varied because outlets used different timestamps and different coverage areas. Some reports focused only on Illinois and northwest Indiana, while others included Ohio and the wider Midwest storm path. Weather.com’s live coverage reached nearly 875,000 outages across the region, but that total included several states and was not a clean Illinois-Indiana-only count.

The last 36 hours of power outages in the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Initial outages occurred in West Virginia and Virginia with an initial peak of around 250k customers affected. A second round of storms leading to outages in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, with a current… pic.twitter.com/yUcsWrBTxX

— PowerOutage.us (@PowerOutage_us) August 11, 2026

For readers trying to track the real scale, the safest reading is simple: this was a major utility failure caused by severe weather, not a small local outage. The exact peak total still depends on the moment measured and the geography used, but the reporting clearly shows a large and disruptive storm event that hit working families, drivers, and power crews at the same time.