Tornado causes damage in northern Ill.

Associated Press

CHICAGO

At least one large tornado touched down Thursday night in northern Illinois, causing significant damage and prompting reports of more than a dozen people rescued from a collapsed restaurant.

The National Weather Service confirmed on Twitter that a tornado was on the ground near Rochelle around 7 p.m. Thursday and urged residents to “seek shelter immediately if in the path of this dangerous storm.”

An Illinois sheriff’s dispatcher who declined to give her name due to department policy said there was widespread damage but no immediate reports of injuries when the tornado swept across the town of Hillcrest, about 80 miles west of Chicago.

Robin Biggs, an employee at the Super 8 motel in nearby Rochelle, said she took video of the storm, which she said “took everything out in its path.”

“I have lived here 18 years, and I have never seen a tornado that big or stay on the ground that long,” she said. “What we have is a small one touching the ground and going right back up, but this just stayed down and went all the way across the horizon.”

Koleen Kessen, who works at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Rochelle, said she went outside and spotted the tornado a few miles away after hearing sirens. She said hotel guests told her the tornado leveled a restaurant.

The Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, citing fire officials, reported that 14 people who had been trapped inside Grubsteakers restaurant in Rochelle had since been rescued. The newspaper reported the restaurant collapsed during the storm. No further details were immediately available.

Around 9:30 p.m., the Weather Service said it could not confirm how many tornadoes struck the area but said one long-tracked storm moved across DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties, sporatically touching down and causing damage.

Winnebago County Sheriff’s spokesman Ken DeCoster said funnel clouds also were spotted near Rockford a few miles north but did not touch down. However, television footage showed multiple homes damaged in the unincorporated community of Fairdale.

The system, packing hail and damaging winds, was headed east as storms rumbled through the Midwest and Plains during the region’s first widespread bout of severe weather.

The severe weather forced the cancellation of more than 850 flights at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and dozens of others at the city’s Midway International Airport.