ROCHELLE, Ill. -- One person was killed and seven were injured in a tiny northern Illinois community after at least one large tornado touched down in the area, authorities said Thursday night.
One person was killed in the community of Fairdale, James Joseph with the Illinois Department of Emergency Management said.
Rockford Fire Department division chief Matthew Knott told ABC7-TV that seven people were injured. Knott said "every single" one of the approximately 50 structures in Fairdale had been damaged.
The National Weather Service confirmed on Twitter around 7 p.m. that a tornado was on the ground in nearby Rochelle and urged residents to seek shelter immediately.
Robin Biggs, an employee at the Super 8 motel in Rochelle, which is about 80 miles west of Chicago, said she took video of the storm, which she said "took everything out in its path."
"I have lived her 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."
Ogle County Sheriff Brian Van Vickle said at a news conference that about 20 homes there were severely damaged or destroyed, but no deaths or significant injuries were reported.
Van Vickle said 12 people were trapped in the basement of Grubsteakers, a Rochelle restaurant that collapsed during the storm.
One of those rescued from the restaurant, Raymond Kramer, 81, told Chicago's WLS-TV that he was trapped with 11 others in the storm cellar for 90 minutes. They were freed after emergency crews removed debris that had fallen over them. He said none of those rescued was injured.
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, sporadically touching down and causing damage.
TV footage from Fairdale showed first responders sorting through debris in what appeared to be a residential area.
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.
The weather service in Davenport, Iowa, said it had received multiple reports of tornadoes in Scott and Clinton counties in the far eastern part of the state. At least one tornado had touched down earlier Thursday evening in rural Donahue, about 15 miles north of Davenport. The weather service had no reports of injuries from those storms.
The National Weather Service's "enhanced risk" area stretched from northeast Texas to Michigan, Wisconsin and across the upper Midwest.
In central Indiana, a 75-year-old woman died Wednesday night after being swept into a rain-swollen creek near Indianapolis. Pittsboro Fire Chief Bill Zeunik said the woman, identified as Doris Martin, was clearing debris from a water-filled ditch in her front yard when she fell in and was swept away into a drainage pipe. Martin's body was found in a creek nearly a mile away.
Information for this article was contributed by Don Babwin, Michael Tarm and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/10/2015