Removing trees, restoring power, fighting water after latest storm
Weary and wet suburban residents on Saturday began another round of cleanup from the latest strong wave of storms that raked the area Friday night.
Strong winds downed many trees and, at the peak, about 90,000 customers were without power, ComEd spokesman John Schoen said. That number had dropped to 5,600 by Saturday evening, including about 1,700 customers in Elgin and 950 in Itasca.
"We've got about 450 crews out right now trying to get things up as quickly as possible," Schoen said earlier Saturday. "The storm had a lot of lightning and a lot of wind. We definitely had lighting striking our equipment."
Lightning also was blamed for causing a fire that left a home uninhabitable on the 29W200 block of Andermann Drive in an unincorporated part of Will County.
A resident reported the fire at 9:53 p.m. Friday and, when emergency crews from Naperville Fire Department arrived, smoke and flames were coming from the roof of the two-story home. No one was injured.
Firefighters had to run some 2,000 feet of hose through several trucks to douse the fire because the area did not have fire hydrants, said Naperville Fire Department Deputy Chief Andrew Dina.
"Our guys did a good job," Dina said. "We train for un-hydranted areas. There was never a time where we ran out of water."
In Itasca, where winds felled scores of trees, Jeff Maki, a contractor with H&H Electric Co., was working on a streetlight that had been knocked down at the corner of Irving Park Road and Walnut Street. He said he'd been out all night driving from suburbs to suburb fixing electrical problems.
"I haven't seen one like this in a while," Maki said, lamenting that the power outages meant the nearby Starbucks was closed. "This is like my 16th hour out. I've been from Fox Lake to Naperville and back twice."
Several large trees were down at Usher park near the intersection of Irving Park and Bloomingdale roads.
"It felt like a microburst," Marie Santoro said. "It just came that quick."
Her son, the owner of Tree Guys Pizza, and the family and their employees were scrambling to set up their outdoor 25th anniversary celebration party Saturday. She said she didn't understand how the same storm that knocked over huge trees spared their decorations, including hanging plants and a huge tent.
The storm also whipped through parts of the Timbercrest and Timbercrest Woods subdivisions in Schaumburg, with hail shredding leaves and window screens. Resident Kirsten Binder posted photos of the aftermath on social media and lauded her neighbors for working together to unclog sewer grates from leaves, which looked like they were shot out of food processor onto homes, decks and vehicles.
"The thing that made (the hailstorm) destructive is it was all jagged. It looked like cubes and chunks of ice. The winds were extraordinary," Binder said.
In Elgin, flooding closed Wing Park on the city's near west side and city crews received more than 350 calls for service. City officials estimated 5,000 customers were without power early Saturday. ComEd set up a caravan in front of the Elgin Police Department, including a cooling bus and water for people needing to get out of the heat.
National Weather Service data indicated it rained more than 2 inches in the Elgin area, while it rained a half-inch to an inch in much of DuPage and Lake counties.
Water levels on the Des Plaines River jumped about a foot overnight in Des Plaines to 18.4 feet, still a foot below the earlier peak. But on the Fox River in Algonquin, the level rose to a new high just over 13 feet. The water in both rivers was at or near its peak as of Saturday evening, according to National Weather Service projections.
To help communication in Lake and McHenry Counties, Comcast is opening up thousands of free Xfinity Wi-Fi hot spots for residents throughout area - including people who don't subscribe to Comcast - until Friday, according to a news release. Comcast is working with government agencies and other service providers, and crews are ready to make repairs if necessary.
For a map of hot spots, visit xfinity.com/wifi. Xfinity customers can sign in with their username and password. Others will be able to renew sessions every two hours.
The latest storm led the organizers of Algonquin's Founders' Days Festival to announce Saturday they were canceling the event, slated for July 27-30, so police, fire and public works personnel could focus on flood recovery efforts.
With the water moving downstream, rising water levels along the Fox River in Kane County prompted St. Charles officials to close the Illinois Street bridge and the Indiana Street pedestrian bridge. Traffic will be rerouted; the bridges likely will reopen next week after water levels drop.
"After the overnight storms, conditions called for closing these two structures for the safety of drivers and pedestrians," said St. Charles City Administrator Mark Koenen. "We continue to monitor the situation and will reopen the structures as soon as conditions safely allow it."
High water levels also resulted in the closing of North Aurora Riverfront Park, located behind village hall, and the Fox River Trail East branch between the North Aurora dam and State Street.
• Daily Herald correspondent Katie Smith contributed to this report.