Weather roundup: Power outages, road closures and tornadoes reported Monday in DeKalb County

DeKALB – Multiple tornado touchdowns reportedly were spotted near Clare, Malta, Sycamore and Fairdale in DeKalb County, the National Weather Service confirmed on Monday, though the confirmed number isn’t yet known.

Sycamore received a lot of the tornado damage, according to local law enforcement, and portions of Airport Road are closed as a result.

DeKalb County Sheriff Chief Deputy Andy Sullivan said unincorporated Sycamore received most of the storm damage, specifically damage to barns and at least one house on Airport Road south of Bethany Road. He said another residence on Fenstermaker Road, close to Bethany Road, sustained damage.

Sullivan said there are a lot of trees and live wires down along Airport Road. As of about 7:30 p.m., he said Airport Road was closed between Barber Greene Road and Bethany Road.

“It’s going to take a while for that” to be cleared out, Sullivan said.

Eric Lenning, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago, said Monday evening there were “quite a few reports and photos of tornadoes and funnel clouds across DeKalb County.” He said those spotted tornadoes and funnel clouds “moved on and sprung up in Kane County.”

“Multiple tornadoes are possible, but they could be part of the same storm, just being reported multiple times,” Lenning said. “We cannot say the exact number of tornadoes at this time, only that there appear to have been multiple tornadoes possible. We have to go out, visit the sites and conduct surveys in person tomorrow to verify the tornadoes.”

Also, as of 7:21 p.m., ComEd’s OutageMap is reporting four outages affecting 39 customers in DeKalb County and nine outages affecting 139 customers in Kane County. There are 64 total outages affecting 1,123 customers in northern Illinois.

Sullivan said ComEd was on the scene at Airport Road to address the live electrical wire concerns.

“They will start to work on that in the near future,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan added there were no injuries reported as a result of the storms.

“Not to our knowledge at this time,” Sullivan said.

Sycamore Police Chief Jim Winters and Dep. Chief Michael Anderson confirmed Monday evening “nothing at this time” damage-wise was reported within city limits from the storms.

“Sirens [were] set off twice for precautionary reasons,” Anderson said. “[The] closest damage was Bethany Road and Fenstermaker Road.”

Ricky Castro, a meteorologist at National Weather Service in Chicago, previously said Monday afternoon the tornado warning remained in effect in the northern part of DeKalb County especially. A tornado warning was in effect for DeKalb and Kane counties until 6:15 p.m., according to the weather service.

“We’re just getting some reports now of a tornado in progress northeast of Clare,” Castro said at 4:50 p.m. Monday.

Castro elaborated there was a brief tornado spotted in Esmond, then ground circulation was reported by a storm spotter at Old State Road and Malta Road near Clare.

“At least a brief tornado,” Castro said.

Castro said another area of rotation was detected near Fairdale but the weather service had not received spotter confirmation.

“That area was concerning enough” to issue the separate tornado warning there regardless, Castro said.

Castro and Dennis Miller, coordinator for the DeKalb County Emergency Services Disaster Agency, confirmed individual municipalities are in charge of their own sirens and most heavily rely on National Weather Service warnings.

Castro urged residents Monday afternoon to keep an eye on wireless notifications that may come from cell phone towers that might be pinged near tornado warning areas. Such alerts came for DeKalb-area residents at about 5:33 p.m. Monday.

• This story has been updated at about 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 9, 2021 to include additional information from area law enforcement, National Weather Service and ComEd.