CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Severe storms swept through the Chicago area Thursday, damaging buildings and falling trees and traffic lights. Several funnel clouds were reported in the western suburbs.

After funnel clouds were spotted about 10 miles west of the Kane County Judicial Center, occupants were ordered into the building’s basement, a Geneva Police Department spokesman said.

Police said there were numerous reports of downed trees, telephone polls and wires, and that there was some street flooding and power outages.

Storms also knocked down trees and damaged buildings north and west of Peoria in central Illinois, and adding to the rising water in several rivers.

Volunteers and emergency workers were stacking sandbags to protect buildings and homes from the rising Des Plaines and Fox Rivers near Waukegan.

An afternoon storm that included high winds uprooted trees and damaged at least one home in Galesburg, about 40 miles northwest of Peoria, according to the National Weather Service.

The storm also blew the windows out of a church in nearby Toulon, and knocked out power lines across Stark County, just north of Peoria.

In Rockford, municipal and city workers were still cleaning up from more server storms that blew through overnight, city manager Michael Young said.

The power had been off since early morning, Young said late in the afternoon, forcing police to direct traffic at downtown intersections and leading some restaurants to bring in refrigerator trucks to keep food from spoiling.

And with temperatures in the area pushing 90 degrees, Young said, “We have a senior housing complex that we’re concerned about.”

About 100 people live in the complex he said, but none needed to be moved out.

Heavy rain also fell across far-northern Illinois, where rivers have been high since a round of weekend storms.

The Fox River flooded some homes in Fox Lake, about 10 miles west of Waukegan, while other residents of the area stacked sandbags to protect their houses, said Ami McEwan, assistant administrator for Lake County.

“Most of them are sandbagging and keeping it at bay,” she said.

In downtown Gurnee, just west of Waukegan, workers were stacking sandbags to protect an elementary school from the Des Plaines River, she said.

School hadn’t yet started for the fall, so no students were affected.

A foot of water stood over roads in the Rochelle area, about 20 miles west of De Kalb, and the Des Plaines River was more than 3 feet above flood stage north of Waukegan, according to the weather service.

Minor to serious flooding also was reported along the northern stretches of the Fox and Rock rivers.

More rain was expected through the night Thursday before a cold front started to push wet weather out of the area over the weekend, Nelson said.

He expected the last of the rain to clear the area by Saturday afternoon.

Nelson warned, however, that “Most of these rivers will stay up through much of next week.”