8/23/07 DISC: IL

[Dan Cook]

Currently living in a Westin hotel in Lombard as my house there's uninhabitable since the power's been off for 24 hours and looks to be at least a few more days without power as well.

Storms rolled in around 3:10 and blasted the area. Took a drive around town and pretty much saw tree devestation everywhere:

More pictures can be found here

http://www.midwestchasing.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=28

 

[Adam Lucio]

Very similar around my house which is near midway airport. Damage was a little more isolated compared to areas in the northern end of the city. Photo is 1 city block north of my house.

I went after the southern end of the second line that went tornado warned as it hit Kankakee county around 8pm. Shot down I-57 then east on route 17 for about 8 miles. Observed a possible wall cloud in between the almost constant flashes of lightning. The return home brought some small branches blown across I-57 and lots of ponding.

Edit**Photo is not showing up for unknown reason.

 

[Chad Cowan]

I ducked out of work a little early and tried to get up to the 96th floor of the Hancock Tower to watch the squall move in, but the storm beat me there and I was caught on the street. I saw a woman get knocked off her feet by the gusts and a few large branches snap off. My commute home took 3x longer than usual due to trees on the train tracks and power outages. On the train, I noted a significant amount of large trees down in a cemetery and went there yesterday to photograph some of the damage. Getting off the train, I saw the 2nd line developing to the west and snapped a couple pictures of the shelf. I decided to go down to the beach to shoot some lightning and was rewarded with a few good ones.

The cemetery in which I took the damage photos is about 4 miles north of downtown, near the Sheridan red line stop, for anyone familiar with the area. As you can see in my pictures, the trees that were blown over or snapped are amazingly large. Having received over 10" of rain in August, the ground is extremely saturated and the uprooted trees are a product of that. I was surprised to see some of the large trees were snapped in half, rather than blown over, but I did note what appeared to be rotting within these trees.

Note the airplane in this photo, right between the bolts:

Shelf from the 2nd line:

Dollar bill for scale:

There are more pictures on my site, including what I think may be a gravity wave. PM me if you take a look at it and know what it is.

 

[David Draun]

From my driving around impacted areas on Thursday and Friday, I've noticed heavy tree damage around my area in northern Cook county. Also several retention ponds have gone over their banks in my area. In Dekalb, the Kishwaukee River is rising and several streets are under up to a foot and a half of standing water with one intersection under 3 feet of water. The west end of town and the east end of the NIU campus are threatened by the river. The east campus lagoon has collected much of the river water and has risen as high as the top of the "no swimming" sign posted next to it, with the water spilling over onto Rt. 38. The campus was under emergency shutdown on Friday with the first day of school Monday threatened if more rain occured. Truly a mess here in northern IL!