Violent storms blamed for at least 3 fatalities across Midwest

Thomas Leffler
·5 min read

An outbreak of severe thunderstorms that ripped across the Midwest on Monday evening was blamed for killing at least three people and resulted in power being cut off for hundreds of thousands across five states. At one point on Monday, nearly 700,000 were without power in Michigan, the hardest-hit state. By late Tuesday afternoon, more than 360,000 customers remained without power, according to PowerOutage.us.

The storms, which unleashed dangerous winds, uprooted large trees and downed numerous tree limbs. A woman was killed in Toledo when a tree fell on her during Monday night's storms, local station WTVG reported.

In Monroe, Michigan, located between Toledo and Detroit, a 14-year-old girl was electrocuted after she came into contact with a downed powerline, according to the Monroe Public Safety Department.

"Emergency personnel arrived to discover that the female subject was still in contact with the energized electrical line, which fell as a result of passing thunderstorm," officials with the public safety department said. "DTE Energy crews were contacted and disconnected the power lines, so emergency workers could attend to the victim."

"Once the scene was made safe and rescue workers could attend to the victim, it was obvious that she had succumbed to her injuries."

Officials in Arkansas said an 11-year-old boy was killed when he was swept into a storm drain during a flash flood caused by heavy rains. Police in Bentonville, in the northwest corner of the state about a two-hour drive from Little Rock, said the child was overwhelmed by the rushing water and that a 47-year-old woman attempted to rescue him.

When officers arrived, they were able to pull the boy and the woman from the storm drain and rush them to the hospital, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. The boy died at the hospital.

An uprooted tree in Troy, Michigan, on Monday, Aug.. 29, 2022, one of many trees that were toppled due to strong gusty winds as storms moved through the Midwest Monday afternoon and into the evening. (Photo/David Lambert)

An investigation by Monroe Police detectives determined that the victim was walking with a friend in the backyard of her home when they smelled what they thought was a bonfire. The girl then reached for what she thought was a stick but it was in fact a charged electrical line.

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The severe thunderstorms began Monday afternoon and quickly made their mark across the region, stretching from Iowa to Ohio before heading eastward into Pennsylvania and bringing bursts of heavy rain and intense wind gusts of up to 81 miles per hour in some spots. Driving the storms was an advancing cold front colliding with hot and humid air that had been in the area over the past several days.

Both Indiana and Michigan dealt with dangerous wind gusts due to the storms, including 81-mph gusts in Lowell, Indiana, 70-mph gusts at Detroit's City Airport and a 66-mph gust reported in Holland, Michigan, according to AccuWeather data.

Strong winds accompanied downpours throughout the afternoon, such as this scene from St. Joseph County in Indiana:

As a result, power outages were widespread across the area, particularly in the Great Lakes State. As of 9:30 p.m. EDT Monday, more than 600,000 customers in Michigan had lost power, according to PowerOutage.US. This number was still over 600,000 as of 5 a.m. EDT Tuesday, but had dropped to more than 370,000 by 10 a.m. Tuesday. Over a quarter of a million were still in the dark as of 5 a.m. EDT Wednesday.

The highest concentration of Michigan outages was in the southern part of the state. On Tuesday morning, 19,785 of the 62,683 customers tracked in Calhoun County on PowerOutage.US were without power. Nearby, Jackson County's outages were still more than 14,000 as of 5 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Storm clouds gather above Great American Ballpark prior to a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds in Cincinnati, Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. The game was delayed due to inclement weather. (AP Photo/Aaron Doster)

Just south of the main outage concentration, Indiana also dealt with mass outages Monday evening, with more than 50,000 customers losing power at one point, according to PowerOutage.US.

Other states dealing with outages during the evening hours were Ohio (31,832 customers cut off), Pennsylvania (17,288 outages) and New York (10,330 outages). By Tuesday morning, more than 3,000 customers were still without power in Pennsylvania and New York, and more than 6,000 were still in the dark in Ohio.

Earlier in the afternoon Monday, several reports emerged of hail and multiple downed trees due to the heavy winds, including branches downed north of Grant Park, Illinois, approximately 50 miles south of Chicago.

The storms also drenched streets in Columbus, Ohio, causing a rough commute for some.

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