In south suburbs, confirmed tornado rips roof off Steger building, uproots trees

STEGER, Ill. (WGN) — Village officials on Thursday expressed surprise by how quickly Wednesday’s storms rolled in. But what wasn’t surprising was learning the damage was caused by a confirmed tornado.

A National Weather Service survey team earlier in the day confirmed Steger was hit by a tornado with an intensity of EF-1, with winds between 86 and 110 MPH.

Among the structures hard hit was a former macaroni factory that had been revamped into a storage facility set to open next month. Crews were busy Thursday cleaning up remnants of a secondary roof that was torn off the building.

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Officials said that to their knowledge, Wednesday’s tornado was the first to ever hit the village, and they’ve learned they were the hardest hit in southern Cook County.

“You can see a definite path from where it started, on the other side of town to this building. It looked like a tornado, so we weren’t surprised,” said Jason Stevenson, chief of Steger’s Emergency Management Agency.

Power has been restored to the more than 1,000 customers who were knocked offline by the storm. Crews have also been out clearing trees that were uprooted or branches that fell to the ground.

“These are the moments we’ve been training for most of our career,” said Village fire chief Michael Long. “It was a pleasure to see our men and women get out and do what they were supposed to do. Within two hours we had all the streets cleaned up.”

There were no reported injuries.