Cooperative clean up effort continues in Wildwood
The weather was nice, but the buzz and clank of saws and heavy equipment meant there still was no calm nearly three days after a tornado hit the unincorporated Wildwood neighborhood in Warren Township.
Workers from townships and communities throughout Lake County were called to assist Wednesday clearing trees and debris left behind by an EF-1 twister that emerged suddenly Sunday night and raced through several communities. The work is far from done in hard-hit Wildwood.
"The damage there was overwhelming. There were literally thousands of trees down," Warren Township Supervisor Suzanne Simpson said. "The streets are clear. Now it's a matter of picking up all the debris. I'm estimating a week to 10 days."
Simpson said Wildwood, a leafy established community, was probably the hardest hit of central Lake County communities. The storm followed a path down Deerpath Road and Twin Lakes Boulevard and hit Twin Lakes Park.
"There's going to be ground that's going to see sunlight for the first time in 200 years," Simpson said of the mature trees that were lost.
Maureen Jekot, director of the Wildwood Park District, said falling trees destroyed a playground at Twin Lake Park and about 75 trees were lost in the district's four parks. The small park staff will work on tree removal for the next month, she said.
Remarkably, no one was injured as a result of the storm, but the adversity brought about a communal spirit. BBQ'd Productions, a local restaurant, served 3,000 meals to volunteers, and Mariano's grocery provided an "incredible amount of food," Simpson said. Mariano's also provided a gift certificate for good measure, she said.
Deerpath resident Enrique Camacho lost several enormous old trees and was joined Wednesday by his brother-in-law and friends to clear the damage.
"I don't have any more. Not even one," he said of the trees. "Totally devastating."
Chris Cusker used to be Camacho's next door neighbor. He still lives in the area but didn't suffer any damage.
"I saw on Facebook that they had some trouble over here in my old neighborhood, and we've been working for three days since," he said.
"It's a war zone. All the trees exploded and that's probably what saved most of the houses because the tornado took out all the energy on the trees and saved the homes," Cusker said. "It's amazing nobody was hurt."
Jeff Thompson, of the Ela Township highway department, was among many crews from outside agencies called to help. Townships have a reciprocal agreement regarding these types of situations, Simpson said.
"It's a lot of damage. A lot of trees are down," Thompson said. "There's a lot of money being spent here to clean this up."