Elmhurst drivers who use Route 83 between North Avenue and St. Charles Road found the road underwater Monday, July 27, after severe thunderstorms dumped 2.41 inches of rain on the city in a matter of hours.

The Elmhurst Police Department announced the closure of Illinois Route 83 in both directions at 1:45 p.m. Monday, with the Illinois Department of Transportation on scene. As of the department's last update on Facebook, Palmer Drive reopened by 5 p.m. that day, but no confirmation that Route 83 itself has fully reopened has been posted.

The storms hit Elmhurst and Villa Park harder than anywhere else in DuPage County. Radar-indicated wind gusts reached 70 mph in both communities, the highest in the county, according to DuPage Community News. Villa Park recorded between 2.15 and 2.50 inches of rain. Golf ball-sized hail with diameters up to 1.75 inches pelted Elmhurst, Villa Park, Oak Brook, and Oakbrook Terrace, NBC Chicago reported.

The area had gone three straight weeks without measurable rainfall before Monday's storms broke the dry spell.

62,000 without power in DuPage County

Approximately 62,000 DuPage County customers lost power Monday, part of a broader outage affecting more than 530,000 ComEd customers across northern Illinois. As of 6 a.m. Wednesday, July 29, ComEd had restored service to nearly 300,000 customers regionwide, with more than 2,300 personnel deployed, according to a ComEd press release.

ComEd expects to restore 80 percent of affected customers by noon Thursday, July 30, with the vast majority back online by 10 p.m. Friday, July 31.

"Our teams will not rest until every customer is restored," David Perez, ComEd's executive vice president and chief operating officer, said in the company's July 28 statement.

ComEd attributed the scale of damage to what it called "a level of severe weather unlike what we've seen in recent years," noting its service area has already experienced more major storms in 2026 than in all of 2025.

Tornado confirmed five miles away

The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-0 tornado in Glen Ellyn, roughly five miles from downtown Elmhurst, with peak winds of 80 mph. Three other tornadoes touched down elsewhere in the Chicago area Monday, ABC 7 reported. No tornado touched down in Elmhurst.

NWS survey teams are conducting ground assessments of the hardest-hit areas, the agency said in a 4:40 a.m. Tuesday post.

As we reported Tuesday, the storm also knocked out power at Courts Plus and eight other Elmhurst Park District facilities.

What residents should know

Residents still without power can report outages by texting OUT to 26633, calling 1-800-EDISON1, or visiting ComEd.com/report. Personalized restoration estimates are available at ComEd.com/OutageTracker.

ComEd said its restoration priority is hospitals first, then police and fire departments, then repairs that restore the greatest number of customers, before shifting to smaller neighborhoods and individual homes. Crew basecamps have been set up at Yorktown Mall and the College of DuPage, among other locations.