High winds blew dust from central Illinois farms to Chicago on Friday, in what was the first dust storm the city had seen since the Dust Bowl in 1934.
Some cars throughout the city were caked with dust, and owners flocked to car washes over the weekend and into Monday giving a boost in businesses to many shops.
Juan Hernandez, owner and operator of Elston Hand Car Wash in Avondale, said business was similar to the uptick after snowstorms as cars lined up on the block for the shop’s hand washing services.
“We were busy open to close,” Hernandez said. “Everybody rushed in to clean their cars, of course, because the sand will scratch their cars, so you got to clean all that out.”
The rush continued into Monday. Hernandez said cars were lined up at 8 a.m. when the car wash opened, and people called all day asking about wait times.
He has been in business for 15 years and hasn’t seen anything like it during the spring season. Hernandez said he wasn’t expecting the amount of cars that came in, but his team was able to handle the extra work while paying greater attention to how they treated the dust-caked vehicles to prevent damaging paint. And that added to customer wait times.
Hernandez said wait times were two hours the last several days.
“You have to be careful with how you rinse them because of all that sand on the cars; you don’t want to scratch people’s vehicles,” Hernandez said.
Last week’s weather was unusual for Chicago in May.
Thursday saw record-breaking temperatures reaching 93 degrees followed by sporadic but intense thunderstorms bringing baseball-sized hail followed by Friday’s 60- to 70-mph winds carrying dust picked up from farms in central Illinois.
Weather officials issued a dust storm warning for the Chicago area until 8:30 p.m. The warning alerted residents to seek shelter and avoid roads as low visibility could create hazardous driving conditions.
Friday’s dust storm warning was only the second ever issued by the National Weather Service office in Romeoville. The first was on May 7, 2023.
Business jumped at Birdies Car Wash in Oak Lawn. Rame Saleh, a manager at the car wash, said after Friday’s storm “there was a massive amount of cars over the next few days.”
Saleh said some customers living in the Chicago area for decades had never seen anything like the dust storm.
“It was definitely odd,” he said. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen anything like that.”