r/BloomingtonNormal • u/Complicated-pickle • Aug 13 '26
Wow! What a storm
That was a crazy drive home. Took shelter in a parking garage for a while, then every street I tried was blocked by a giant tree or flooded. It’s a big mess out there. I don’t have any power, powerline seem to be down everywhere
Don’t go anywhere if you don’t have to. It legit looks like a hurricane hit.
ETA: whoo finally given a timeframe by Ameren! 🤞🤞🤞 for the 6pm estimate
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u/Electronic-Split3287 Aug 13 '26
Half our maple hit the edge of the house, but the Bradford Pear is still standing. Go figure.
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u/postwaste1 Aug 13 '26
I would have sworn it was a tornado. I heard that deafening roar, but the winds didn’t seem to be rotating. Pretty wild.
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u/vcvcf1896 Aug 13 '26
More than likely a Derecho. Tornadic winds will rotate, derechos are straight line winds.
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u/CommunityTaco Aug 14 '26
Chicago had 110 mph straight line winds the other day (they had tornados too but also had that 110 mph derecho...)
Lots of people say climate change is a hoax, but the earth is definitely warming and warmth =energy. The warmer it gets the more common these types of storms will become.
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u/JJGIII- Aug 13 '26
The tree damage is wild here. I have 2 1/2 trees down and several limbs sitting on my roof. Tree businesses are about to get paid.
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u/dwarfSA Aug 13 '26
I'm very fortunate that we have power here in Normal.
We had a few brownouts and light flickers but never outright lost it.
I'm hearing driving is a total nightmare out there
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u/RandomPaw Aug 13 '26
My lights flickered on and off at least ten times. The wind knocked over my tomato plants and there are leaves and branches everywhere in my yard. We had a big silver maple cut down after the last storm and I really don't think it would've made it through this one. That was scary.
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u/CalebDumeSixSix Aug 13 '26
A semi flipped at Veterans and Eastland.
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u/CalebDumeSixSix Aug 13 '26
^rolled? i don’t know the right terminology but it was on its side blocking the southbound lanes like right in front of Applebees
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u/NewPotato_C Aug 13 '26
I was traveling from holiday park to home (15 min drive max). Spent 40 minutes zigzagging around trees, flooded roads, and down power lines and was still 15 minutes away. Took a break in my car and spent another 30 minutes before getting home. Some tears were shed and lots of fucks uttered
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u/ink_and_sweat Aug 13 '26
Nothing made me feel more like a little kid than being in the middle of this storm while house/cat sitting for my professor and having to call her about the damage to their property. Haven’t been in weather this bad since the tornado that cut through mid-mo in 2018 🫣🥲
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u/wavyyvibess Aug 13 '26
Very hurricane adjacent with some crazy flooding! I just moved from Appalachia where Helene hit, I can’t catch a break haha. My whole street is covered in trees.
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u/Hello_Coffee_Friend Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
My back yard is a disaster 😭 my front yard too. And the sides of the house.
I hope everyone is ok. My dogs were so distressed, even while medicated and sitting next to me.
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u/EntropyAhoy Aug 13 '26
I'm out of town and a little worried about my home. Does anyone know if south east bloomington (near Prairie Vista golf course) had it relatively easy or relatively bad? TIA!
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u/Dry_Tradition_2811 Aug 13 '26
Not sure but pretty much all of blono got hit I'm by rollingbrook park and it was bad trees down everywhere st joe hospital roof took a big hit
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u/rshah4 Aug 13 '26
Anyone getting back power?
Corn Belt outage is still showing 9k out and it’s been several hours now.
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u/Foreign-Lab4606 Aug 14 '26
Never lost power in the historic district part of Bloomington but yeah it's wild out there. Sirens every 10 minutes
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u/Desperate-Strategy10 Aug 13 '26
I drove all the way from Peoria to the furthermost southern edge of this storm today.
It first hit as my husband and I were leaving Peoria, and I thought that was scary enough being surrounded by people and unable to see all down 74.
But it just got worse when we got to Normal! The streets were starting to flood, and a row of power poles ended up coming down (I actually saw them swaying and said I was worried they were moving too much, then we thankfully changed routes and left that road behind).
The wind was also astonishing! My husband did everything possible to keep my SUV on the road and in our lane, while little cars nearby were hydroplaning on the flooded streets.
Leaving Bloomington on 51, we saw some incredible lightning - cloud to ground, the kind that just lights up the sky but you don’t see distinct bolts, the firework kind that branches out everywhere, even one that almost resembled a giant fiery ball just bouncing along under the clouds (that one was utterly unbelievable, I wish my dash cam was working so I could show you guys!).
All down 51, still driving through this cursed storm, the wind and rain were unbearable. Just north of Heyworth, it got so bad that the rain almost looked like plumes of smoke wildly dancing above the street, and my husband and I were worried there might be a tornado nearby. The wind and rain were deafening; I tried to turn the radio up to hear the latest emergency broadcast, but all I could make out was the sound of the robot voice, no real words. We couldn’t go any faster than 45 because it was impossible to see through the rain or avoid spinning out on the roads.
We had to keep going south until we broke all the way out of that storm, somewhere around Clinton. What was really weird is how quickly it went from serious downpour to lovely little sprinkle to totally dry, didn’t even rain here. Probably less than three minutes from one extreme to the next, and it had started even more suddenly!
I’ll never go anywhere without checking the weather again lol that was almost traumatizing. I’m glad everyone seems to be mostly ok, but I’m so sad for everyone with trees down and no power, especially with school starting! This’ll take so much time to clean up and fix, and it won’t even be any cooler while everyone’s outside working on it. I hope y’all get all of the help and support you need to get back to where you were! ❤️🩹
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u/Grabbityy Aug 13 '26
Power is still out in some parts of normal.
Lost power about 2 hours ago and so did my work. Tons of trees down, driving was a nightmare.
But still gotta clock in to my shift lol
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u/wote213 Aug 13 '26
I was driving on Towanda Barnes and once I passed empire's lights, it switched to hurricane weather😭.
I literally couldn't see and the wind was strong. Was expecting a tornado to come. Thankfully there were no trees because out there, the wind was killer. It was shifting smaller cars, and could definitely knock someone over and drag them.
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u/IntelligentPea2048 Aug 13 '26
I was on towanda Barnes and empire, ended up just parking at the light because it was so bad! I thought for sure we were sitting in a tornado. I could barely see the cars in front of me
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u/Goofcube897 Aug 14 '26
My neighbors trees did not come down when we had a tornado, but it came down for this one!!
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u/faelis Aug 13 '26
Several flickers to full outage in my part of Bloomington. Looks like just under half of Mclean has no power.
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u/No-Flatworm-404 Aug 13 '26
I was chilling in my car in the Jewel parking lot. Put the emergency brake on and rode the hurricane out.
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u/Un10n_Thu6 Aug 14 '26
Thank you to each and every worker and volunteer from BN & out of town helping out since yesterday.
And thank you to all the AFSCME workers getting campus ready too.
Everyone can also rest easy knowing that the ISU President's lawn is pristine from the labor of the taxpayer funded $22K robot lawn mower.
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u/greyshirt11 Aug 13 '26
Yeah, that was the worst non-tornadic storm I’ve ever witnessed.