WASHINGTON, Ill. – Storms that swept across the Midwest left at least six people dead and unleashed powerful winds that flattened neighborhoods, flipped over cars and uprooted trees.
Illinois was struck the hardest by the unusually powerful late-season tornadoes Sunday. Washington, a town of 16,000 about 140 miles southwest of Chicago, appeared to have the most severe damage.
State Trooper Dustin Pierce says the tornado there cut a path about an eighth of a mile wide from one side of town to the other. Entire blocks of Washington were leveled.
Other towns were heavily damaged, too, and officials at Chicago's Soldier Field evacuated the stands and delayed the Bears-Baltimore Ravens game.
Two people died in New Minden in southern Illinois, one in Washington and three others in Massac County in far southern Illinois.
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