What a doozy of a storm we had last night! Between trees down, flooded streets, and nonworking traffic lights, my 1-hour commute became a 3-hour commute. And no power at my house (still out as of 8:00 this morning when I left for work).
At times during my drive, the storm was downright scary, and by that time the worst of it was over. This morning, it was not raining, and I could get a clear view of the destruction…I passed one cemetary that had two giant trees completely uprooted. They had fallen away from the road I was on…lucky, because if they had fallen the other way, they would have come right down on 4 lanes of traffic.
In my neighborhood, there are lots of semi-large tree limbs ripped off (about up to 8 inches in diameter, I guess?) but no major trees, thank goodness.
Hope all is well for eveyone else around here, and in other parts of the country with all this bad weather!
Report from Des Plaines - one mile due north of O’Hare:
She sait it felt like sitting through a tornado yesterday afternoon with the howling winds and intensity of rain. Luckily, no serious damage in her immediate neighborhood, other than a bunch of smallish tree branches scattered around.
I drove through Des Plaines last night during the second round of storms, and it was pretty bad. The first storm was worse, so I can’t imagine what it was like.
I meant to say before…my sister works out near Elmhurst, at a company with a warehouse, and they sent everyone to the warehouse because there was a tornado warning.
My husband was at the AON Tower (the old Standard Oil Building, for us old timers). They had a tornado watch, and had to leave their offices and stand by the elevators. :eek: I’ve never heard of a tornado watch so close to the lake before. Scary.
We were trying to get from Seneca to Chicago Sunday but had to spend the night in Joliet because of the intense rain, this after a couple of days of on and off downpour. We then endured an hour and a half rain delay at Wrigley. You guys been gettin’ it good.
My half hour commute also turned into a 3 hour ordeal. About 15 miles of the Edens Expy was closed, but so were many other major North/South surface streets. I had to keep switching between Green Bay and Sheridan because of fallen trees/downed power lines/flooding. As it was my car stalled 4 times from trying to drive through water that was too deep. It was not a pleasant night to be out.
A couple times the sirens went off and I had to bring the kids into the basement. I calmed down my oldest be telling her these things almost always just blow over with nothing really happening…
Then the siren stopped and we went upstairs and I looked out the window and there was a tree where my driveway used to be :eek:
Actually it’s just a big branch from the oak in my front yard but it’s about as big around as my waist (34 inches or so) at it’s largest - damn thing must be every ounce of 1500 lbs.
It JUST missed my car, which I’m not sure if I’m happy about or not -would have been sweet to get some new wheels.
We have some trees and lots of branches down over here in NW Indiana as well. A tornado was spotted about 4 miles east of here, and I heard the storm sirens for the first time ever here yesterday. And the second time ever. My poor old dog wouldn’t come out of the basement all day.
I think the worst of it might have been further north, but here in Park Forest the power went out for a little over an hour. My daughter sat in our hallway with a book for a while, with the flashlight and then candles. It’s the only spot in the house without windows.
I was about ten minutes late for work, waiting out the worst of it in Target. The lights flickered a bit there, but mostly it was just rain and wind.
The next wave of the storm came through about 8:00. I drove home with big, sky-filling lightning in front of me.
We’re now 15 hours without power as of 3:30 CST yesterday. Luckily, a work associate (who is a construction manager) knew a guy with a gas generator to spare, from a neighborhood that still had power. Got it up and running around 11:00 last night and it’s been going nonstop since. We were lucky to be able to obtain one through people we knew … there was a run on hardware stores last night for generators, which means all stores are long sold out of them. Going through about half a gallon of gas every hour or so on it but it’s providing enough current to power our large freezer, a mini-fridge, a small TV, some lamps and extra lighting. We’re right along the Des Plaines river as well, so the threat of flooding was imminent. Roads in Des Plaines are still backed up and many traffic lights are out. The water retention ponds in our neighborhood were spilling over onto their banks and we were taking on water like a sinking ship. Naturally, the battery and inverter which operated our basement sump pump didn’t have the juice to get the job done, and the rain just barely let up before we started to take on water. It mercifully let up and we didn’t flood, but we’d have been in a real pickle if more rain came and we didn’t get it hooked up to the generator because more rain came in the middle of the night.
Oh yeah, I’m typing this from my laptop, which is running directly off the generator as well. Amazingly, our cable modem connection is still intact, and I’ve hooked our modem and wireless router up to the generator as well. It’s funny … I’m running all this high tech “digital” stuff on a noisy “analog” gasoline generator. Kinda cool.
No damage or power outage at my apartment, although there’s lots of debris around. On the Forest Preserve trails I use, a few small trees and large branches have fallen. Storms a few days earlier had already taken out a couple of larger, weaker trees.
On one of the trails, there’s a footbridge across a low-lying area that gets swampy in wet weather. When I walked by there on Wednesday, there were 3-4 of inches of water on it. Today the waist-high concrete railings are completely submerged. There’s also a path that is now under water where it passes over a culvert. I’ll compare it to the severe flooding on the Des Plaines River at the end of May 2004. At that time the footbridge railings were only half-submerged and the path over the culvert was just above the water.
Saw more trees down on the train ride west to Glen Ellyn than I can ever remember. At Berkely or so a long stretch of 6’ fence was knocked down on a row of parked cars. And in Villa Park some roofs were torn of the baseball dugouts.
Lotsa power out in Lombard and Glen Ellyn. The worst thing was, the aourse we were supposed to play at today was closed due to downed trees, and we had to really look around for another course that was open. Hope the course we are playing tomorrow a.m. is cleaned up!
Lotsa big trees - 2’ diameter, either just snapped off or uprooted, across houses, blocking roads. Wild. Just a few smallish limbs down for us. Lucky.
Saw sandbagging along the Des Plaines River…no traffic is being allowed to cross the river at Chicago Avenue, because the entire street is already sandbagged. Guess they are expecting the river to crest this weekend.
Yeah, power was half out at the Best Buy on Butterfield in Downers Grove that I went to earlier tonight. Then I went to Boston Market on Roosevelt and a sign said the power was out and they were closed, but obviously the power had returned since they left since all the lights were on.
All is good in Lisle … I don’t see any destruction, downed trees, anything.
We’re losing our streets. Yesterday parts of Route 30, I-65, and I-80/94 were shut down. Today, there is even MORE water on I-94 and it is completely closed between Indianapolis Blvd/Rt 41 and Cline Avenue. For that matter, at one point I drove through water a couple inches deep on Indianapolis yesterday - and that was one of the few roads open going north-south. Kennedy Avenue went under the water later Thursday night. Parts of Taft closed. Might be easier to list what was open rather than closed.
Trees down, powerlines down, damage at the Gary Airport, buildings down, working streetlights are now a novelty and large swaths of the area are without power. Keep in mind, NW Indiana a week ago had already had 70 mph winds, damage, hail, rain, flood… this is the second time in less than two weeks we got hit.
But me and mine are OK - some roof damage, but not flooded, power on. We’re safe and (mostly) dry.
