There was a severe storm warning at least 48 hours in advance, and as the storm moved eastward the warnings got more specific. Essentially, everything worked as designed. The TV stations in Chicago went to live coverage more than an hour before it hit Indiana.

There were small, weakish tornados west and south of Chicago, but by the time the storm got to Indiana it had morphed into a 20-mile wide derecho with 100mph wind. Since there has been a TON of rain recently, it was easy to knock trees down, and as you said that area has a lot of power lines above ground.

There really isn’t a lot of damage to houses and buildings, it’s just that there are downed trees and power lines everywhere, all at once.

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toomuchtodo an hour ago | parent [-]

https://www.fema.gov/case-study/overhead-underground-it-pays...

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/the-grid/pge-to-b...

https://corporate.my.xcelenergy.com/s/transmission/about/ove...

	▲	stockresearcher an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The electric utility in Northern Indiana is spending essentially all of its money on modernizing, but state regulators are forcing it to refund “excess” money back to ratepayers. So it literally can’t go any faster.