Winds from heavy storms that hit the south and southwest suburbs late Wednesday afternoon ripped the roof of a building in Steger, temporarily closing nearby railroad tracks.

Fire Chief Michael Long said the building was once a macaroni factory but was in the process of being converted to self-storage facility.

The Fire Department was called about 5:30 p.m. and found large portions of the roof had blown onto adjacent railroad tracks, prompting officials to close to tracks until the railroad responded to clear debris, Long said.

Long said hardest hit area of the village was the southwest part of town, but it was mostly downed trees and no injuries were reported.

He said National Weather Service would be on scene Thursday to investigate whether it was a tornado. He said National Weather Service officials did see rotation on radar and thought it was more than just straight line winds.

The chief said he called his children, who live in New Lenox, warning them to take shelter.

“I got off the phone and looked out and it was on top of us in that short time” he said.

Leanne Roser, of New Lenox, kept a watchful eye over her four dogs in the backyard Thursday afternoon, two of them still energetic pups. She called them back with the promise of a treat, knowing the intense storms had torn down the fence, leaving the yard exposed and a busy road directly behind her property.

When she heard the commotion in her backyard, she took her pups and went down to the basement with her husband and two children, she said.

“I know it sounds crazy, but we’d seen it swirling and then when we saw it like, kind of come out of the sky, that’s when we were like, oh my god, get in the house and let’s get in the basement,” she said.

Roser said the storm took a toll on her property, leaving her without some deck furniture, including a patio table and a gazebo cover, and it damaged a dog pool. The force of the winds also knocked over her flagpole and a few shingles from her neighbor’s house across the street were scattered throughout her yard, she said.

“We’ve got to call a couple of fence companies and we’re hoping that the insurance, you know, covers everything,” Roser said. “If not, we’re kind of screwed.”A New Lenox resident for 23 years, Roser was surprised when the storm blew in, as severe weather events are uncommon for the area, she said.

“At first we were like this is probably just going to pass over,” she said. “It always passes over us.”

New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann said the storms didn’t cause significant damage in the village. There were no major structural issues, downed power lines or substantial damage reported to the village, he said.

However, at the height of the storm strong winds caused a UPS tractor-trailer to overturn on Laraway Road, he said.

Alex Zacek was driving home to New Lenox when he passed the overturned trailer about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Tow trucks were arriving to help right the vehicle, he said. Along the way, he said there also were large tree limbs scattered across the road, downed fences and traffic lights that were out.

Earlier that day, while at his job in Frankfort, Zacek saw the sky suddenly darken about 3 p.m.

“It may as well have been midnight,” Zacek said. “We were all pretty scared. We see some nasty weather here but it normally doesn’t get that dark so early.”

As he was preparing to leave work, Zacek received a weather alert and everyone took shelter. Meanwhile, his fiancée was at home in New Lenox, hiding in their downstairs bathroom with their cat, he said.

“About five minutes later it sounded like a train was rolling over the roof of the building,” he said. “That lasted maybe 20 seconds.”

A large pine tree covered the front yard of a home Thursday off Joliet Highway. One resident shared on Facebook that his metal shed was destroyed, and garbage cans were overturned and branches scattered across multiple yards in the village.

While the damage didn’t affect all of New Lenox, residents said the storm appeared to have followed a narrow path, affecting only the areas directly in its way.

Next to Roser’s home, one neighbor’s house on the right remained completely untouched, with patio lights still intact and furniture undisturbed. However, to the left, Roser’s home and others experienced significant damage.

Allison J. Anderson, director of the Will County Emergency Management Agency, said there were no emergency response efforts she was aware of either in New Lenox or Steger.

Most of the response included downed trees, which the village of Steger quickly cleaned up, Anderson said.

ComEd spokesperson John Schoen said in the utility’s territory, which encompasses most of northern Illinois, about 23,000 customers were affected by Wednesday’s weather.

“The impact was felt across the territory and not in any specific areas,” Schoen said.

The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado touchdown in Gary, and investigators were making their way back southwest, into Illinois communities such as Lynwood, Crete and Steger, according to Scott Baker, a meteorologist with the service in Romeoville.

“They’ll go back through that whole path and see if there was continual damage and a touchdown,” he said.

Wednesday started out fairly balmy, depending on where in the Chicago area you lived.

Baker said temperatures in the upper 30s and low 40s chilled areas north of Interstate 80, while communities to the south had temperatures in the 60s. A larger low-pressure system sparked the late afternoon storms, he said.

“There was a line of storms with a threshold along and just south of 80,” he said.

In suburbs including Steger, Peotone and Park Forest, winds of between 58 and 70 mph were recorded, Baker said, with 58 mph winds being the threshold for what the service considers severe. One measurement in Steger showed winds of 71 mph, he said.

“These were fast-moving storms,” Baker said, traveling at speeds between 40 and 50 mph.

The weather system did not produce heavy rain, with measurements ranging from 6/10th of an inch in Park Forest to just under 1 inch south of Midway International Airport, Baker said.