Severe thunderstorms swept into Chicago late Wednesday, downing trees and submerging streets from the South Side to the western suburbs with a record-shattering seven inches of rain.

Gov. Pat Quinn declared a state of emergency for Illinois, as schools and expressways across the state closed due to flooding.

The National Guard was deployed to rescue stranded commuters and residents as the city braced for continued
rainfall.

Constantine Pitsilos, who graduated from DePaul last fall, had to evacuate his building to escape the
floodwaters.

“The garage in my condo building flooded causing any car that was parked there to be completely
gone,” said Pitsilos.

Pitsilos and other residents of the suburban Lisle-area building were evacuated and given rooms at nearby Benedictine University.

Commuters on the ground were not the only ones affected by the flooding. More than 600 flights were cancelled Thursday due to the severe weather conditions at O’Hare and Midway airports.

“It took me half an hour to an hour from the Roosevelt stop,” said Arthur Ortiz, a DePaul freshman. “The trains were
abnormally packed and were all on top of each other towards the city.”

The Edens Expressway was completely closed as cars began to stall with the rise of the floodwaters, and parts
of the Eisenhower Expressway were also shut down.

Some CTA busses had to be rerouted, while the Blue Line was temporarily stopped due to weather conditions.

Despite the weather conditions, DePaul announced on its Facebook page that all classes would continue as scheduled.

Many suburban commuters were unable to reach the university for Thursday classes.

“I was upset at the fact that classes were not cancelled and I could get penalized for my absence,” said Emily McCarthy, a DePaul sophomore who commutes from Schaumburg.

“The highway that I use, I-90, was a parking lot, backed up all the way down to where I live in the suburbs.”

Thursday set the record for April rain in a 24-hour period, totaling seven inches — more than doubling the average rainfall for a typical month of April. Three locks in the Chicago River were opened to prevent flooding and it was temporarily “re-reversed” when the city’s drainage system exceeded its 2.3 billion gallon holding capacity.

“If schools can get closed down due to snow, flooding is also a reason that it should be closed as well,” said McCarthy. “It is a hazard to expect students, as well as professors, to get to school with the type of weather we experienced.”