(CNN) -- An 800-mile-long arc of powerful storms sped across the Midwest and South Central states on Tuesday, leaving behind a trail of damage and power outages as it gained strength and sped eastward. Wind gusts exceeded 70 mph in some places.

Tens of thousands of people were without power in the Midwest. Extensive damage from high winds, and possible tornadoes, was reported in a band stretching at least as far as from central Michigan to Tennessee.

Possible tornadoes caused extensive damage to buildings near Racine, Wisconsin, and Peotone, Illinois, Tuesday morning.

A Peotone youth who was with his brother at a farm that was damaged described to CNN affiliate WLS-TV in Chicago what it was like in the middle of the tempest.

"All of a sudden, the wind kicked up," Justin Schroeder said. He said the force of the wind "sent us back into the foyer about five feet. It was like a bomb went off. You didn't hear a tornado. You didn't hear a whistle. It was a like an explosion of glass."

Some experts told WLS that the storms may be the most powerful to hit Illinois in more than 70 years.

The National Weather Service and a Racine County Sheriff's Department official told CNN affiliate WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that a tornado touched down in Sturtevant, just west of Racine, causing severe damage to homes and businesses.
Video: Storms tear through Midwest

A 100- to 200-foot section of a roof was torn off one of those businesses, the Case Corp., WTMJ reported. There were no immediate reports of injuries, but workers were sent home for the day.

Severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches popped up throughout central Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee around midday Tuesday as the intense band of storms began to push through Indiana.

More than 60,000 people were without power in Indiana, and at least one tornado was reported to have severely damaged a house in Howard County, northeast of Kokomo, according to CNN affiliate WRTV in Indianapolis.

All 48 floors of the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis were evacuated briefly at the height of the storm, and occupants took refuge in the building's fallout shelter, WRTV reported.

"It was pretty bad up there," Nick Hoetmer, who works in the building, told WRTV. "The windows were moving back and forth, so it was nasty,"

CNN iReporters Gabrielle Torres and her husband pulled over and shot video of heavy winds and rain passing over Corydon, Indiana, about 15 miles west of Louisville, Kentucky.

"There were extremely strong winds that were even rocking my husband's semi-truck side to side," she said. "The tornado sirens were sounding but we could barely hear them over the pounding rain."

Some schools closed early in the Memphis, Tennessee, area, where strong winds knocked trees into parked cars and power lines, according to CNN affiliate WMC-TV.

Crews were working to restore power to about 59,000 customers in northern Illinois, WLS quoted a spokesman for ComEd as saying. Of those, nearly 28,000 were in Chicago's western suburbs. In southeastern Wisconsin, about 6,000 We Energies customers were without power Tuesday morning, a spokesman for that utility told JSOnline in Milwaukee.

The CNN Severe Weather Center reported the storm was moving quickly eastward at more than 50 mph.

Earlier Tuesday, the National Weather Service had forecast a "widespread chance of damaging wind and a few tornadoes" in addition to severe storms in a swath east of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes into the Southeast.

O'Hare International Airport in Chicago halted flights Tuesday morning as high winds and rain passed through the area. The Federal Aviation Administration reported Tuesday afternoon that flights bound for O'Hare Airport and for Detroit Metro Airport were being delayed at their departure points.

In St. Louis, Missouri, two reported partial building collapses were blamed on the extreme weather, according to Officer Donna Wisdom of the St. Louis Police Department. Video from CNN affiliate KSDK-TV in St. Louis showed downed trees, damage to homes and thick rubble on a sidewalk beside a building damaged in the storm. Wisdom said no serious injuries were reported from the partial collapses.

Therese Neumann said that Our Lord would chastise the United States through the elements.

Yes, I read that too, she said God would spare America from the actual cσncєnтrαтισn cαмρs and other communistic tatics because we fed our enemies.  

well, FEMA camps being built so either she was wrong or they will somehow not be used-though USA headed toward cινιℓ ωαr and break down, so, one never knows....

A nation of evil is not spared normally...esp, one founded on false foundations

No doubt, the first to be put in the FEMA camps will be those suffering from the newly discovered mental illness - Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  Yes, this newly discovered mental illness can be detected easily...do you know anyone who is an independent thinker?  Do you know anyone who is not a go along to get along?  Congratulations!  You have met an ODD sufferer!

they got a drug for that one yet? oh heck, jsut throw 3 or 4 at them to "treat" that

yet, some still blaspheme and say "God bless america"...and think we are great.

that said, do you know in my state that if you want Medicaid, you either-as an adult-have to have children that have it and be on family plan (includes contraceptive , sterilization, abortions), be found medically disabled or....drum roll please..

Get it only for sterilization, a temp Medicaid.....

yes, sterilize and get it to do that and only that..

Even in Iraq the mothers were told to make certain they accepted their birth control packet if they wanted food. Africa as well.

Dawn, is this true?

Yes, I have heard that. Any of those organizations funded by Tax    Payer dollars treat the woman who have many children very badly. Now, was it Steve Mosher or the Catholic Rep at the U.N. who told of such occurrence I do not remember. I remember the story of one mother someplace in Africa walking with her five children to an aid station for formula. She was told (pregnant she was by the way) to go over to the person implanted Norplant. She refused and was told to walk on to the next station.
This would not be the Catholics over there of course, but those who aid with the permission and support of our own government. Heck, they are talking about forced birth control/sterilization on women in this country with the population on food stamps rising so.

I live in the Third World, and have spent almost fourteen years of my life in the Third World, and you should see the great lengths the NGO's and UN agencies go to in order to promote birth control and abortion in these countries. Your tax dollars are going to Satan,

 :devil2:

and most people are   or  :wine-drinking: or  :smoke-pot: