What We Know About the Storms Battering the Midwest

Roads collapsed into sinkholes in Indiana. Roofs tore off buildings in Illinois. Residents cried out for water rescues in Ohio.

At least seven people have died from a storm system that has upended the Midwest and portions of the Mid-Atlantic over the past week, displacing people in several states and cutting power to hundreds of thousands of homes.

Some of the most extreme weather occurred on Tuesday, when a derecho — a group of intense storms that can travel hundreds of miles and generate powerful wind gusts — swept into the region. The strongest gust recorded on Tuesday was 99 miles per hour in Gary, Ind.

The repeating weather pattern that has continued for days brought dangerous conditions to the region over the weekend.

Major flooding has continued along the White River, near Indianapolis, according to the National Weather Service.

In southwestern Indiana, the heat index was expected to reach 105 degrees on Sunday, bringing more dangerous weather to the state.

Here is what we know about the damage so far.

Some places had historic floods.

Across the Midwest, floodwaters surged into intersections, ruined highways and seeped into homes and cars. There were dozens of water rescues in several states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Some Indiana cities have measured almost a foot of rainfall since Monday. The National Weather Service office in Indianapolis had never issued a flash flood emergency — its most dire flood alert — until Wednesday. It issued the warning three times that day.

Floods hit several cities east of Indianapolis, including Anderson, Muncie and New Castle, inundating entire neighborhoods and forcing many schools to close. Floodwaters also washed away a piece of Interstate 70 in Indiana, closing westbound traffic near Wayne County on Thursday.

Dan Ridenour, the mayor of Muncie, said in a video address on Wednesday that the rain and floods were more severe than they had been in over a century. “This is a hundred-year event that we’re working our way through,” he said.

On Saturday, floodwaters rose again in Indianapolis as rains p***ed through. Officials called for evacuations in some areas of the city near the White River and reported dozens of rescues.

In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine had declared emergencies in two counties — Perry and Muskingum — and said at a news conference on Wednesday that the Ohio National Guard was helping with water rescues.

Indiana’s governor, Mike Braun, declared a disaster emergency for the entire state on Thursday.

President Trump approved the emergency declaration on Saturday, allowing diaster ***istance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to flow to dozens of deluged Indiana counties.

“FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize and provide, at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency,” the agency said in a statement on Saturday.

Seven people died in Indiana and Ohio.

Officials are still working to identify the number of people who died because of the storms. At least seven deaths appear to be weather-related.

Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security confirmed that there had been six fatalities caused by the storms. One victim’s age was not released, while the others ranged from 4 to 86.

Officials did not know how many residents had been displaced but said more than 200 people were in shelters across Indiana.

In Portage, Ind., one person died in an apparent home explosion. Storm damage on the roads slowed emergency workers, according to officials.

In Geneva, Ind., a 4-year-old boy died after a tree fell on his home, the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office said.

In Delaware County, which includes Muncie, a teenager died after entering a river during flooding on Wednesday, according to the county sheriff’s office.

And in Roseville, Ohio, a person died after a health emergency because emergency workers could not reach the individual in time because of the storm, local officials said.

There have been injuries, too. A lightning bolt on Tuesday struck at a state prison in Grafton, Ohio, JoEllen Smith, a spokeswoman with Ohio’s corrections department, said in an email.

Sixteen inmates were hospitalized, Ms. Smith said, though most of them had returned to the prison by Thursday.

Overall, there were thousands of lightning strikes in the Midwest.

Strong winds knocked down power lines.

Hundreds of thousands of people lost power in the storms. Flooding was partly to blame, along with intense wind gusts.

The outages were concentrated in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, according to poweroutage.us, a site that tracks electrical problems. As of Thursday evening, more than 250,000 customers were without power in Indiana, as well as more than 75,000 in Illinois and more than 40,000 in Ohio.

In addition to the strong gusts across the Midwest, there were at least five tornadoes in the Chicago area on Tuesday, according to the Weather Service, all along the southwestern edge of the city.

The tornadoes knocked out power for homes, schools and churches. They ripped trees from the ground and tore roofs from houses. And they left debris scattered all over the grounds of a suburban concert venue in Tinley Park, Ill.

This weather pattern is stubborn.

Severe storms were expected on Sunday in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, bringing damaging winds, heavy rain, lightning and flooding.

Heavy rain was forecast in portions of Ohio and Indiana, the National Weather Service said.

A heat advisory was also in effect in portions of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, where the heat index could reach 105 degrees.

In Kentucky, an overnight storm could bring wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour, forecasters said.

Reporting was contributed by Ishani Desai, Amy Graff, Judson Jones, J. David Goodman and Bernard Mokam.