Thousands still without power days after Chicago-area storms; Homewood helped by surrounding suburbs
At least 24 tornadoes hit Chicago region on Monday, a new record for a single day: NWS
HOMEWOOD, Ill. (WLS) -- Public works are still working to clean up downed trees and debris in south suburban Homewood.
The community was one of many areas in the Chicago region hit by tornadoes earlier this week.
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The National Weather Service said preliminary information shows at least 24 tornadoes hit the Chicago region on Monday night. That's a new record for a single day.
At least six Chicago-area tornadoes were confirmed on Sunday.
Some Homewood residents are still waiting to get their power back days later.
"It has been quite chaotic, honestly, a little bit depressing," said Sandy Sanders, whose home is without power. "Seeing your neighborhood like this is not easy."
Sanders has been living in darkness for four days now.
"I've never been four days without power. My son, of course, is devastated over no internet, no tablet," Sanders said.
What was in her refrigerator is now spoiled.
The outage forced them to buy large jugs of water and a cooler to keep her medication on ice.
"I do have some pretty strong lanterns that provide us light after the sun goes down when it's dark. But, no power, it takes a toll on your mind more than you think it would," Sanders said. "They did confirm an EF1 touchdown, and I think, when you look at the devastation behind me and all around us, you can tell it's apparent it did."
The damage is still visible, four days after the 100 mph winds. Downed power lines and trees are still blocking roads.
"We heard the train coming, and it literally sounded like a locomotive coming through. All the windows were shaking; our skylights were shaking. The roof felt like it was going to come off," Marla Youngblood said.
Youngblood's backyard was completely destroyed.
"It's our roof, our chimneys. The awning of our house right here is pretty bad," Youngblood said. "All of the furniture from our neighbors, their grills, everything, were in our yard in the morning. Our stuff is across the street."
Windows are boarded up, where branches pierced people's homes.
Public Works teams from the surrounding south suburbs were in the area Friday morning, helping Homewood to remove large trees, brush and debris from badly hit areas across the village, like the Southgate neighborhood.
Orland Park, Hickory Hills and Midlothian were just some of the municipalities supporting Friday's cleanup efforts.
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"The big thing that's been holding us up, especially in Southgate, is the power. With it being a lot of lines down, mixed between the logs and the limbs here, it's unsafe for us. And safety is huge. We have to wait to make sure that they're deenergized. Once that's confirmed by ComEd or by the subcontractors, then we can get in and start cutting things off the wires," Homewood Director of Public Works Joshua Burman said. "One of the biggest questions we've been getting is 'where is ComEd? Where is ComEd? We've been calling. We're not getting responses.' They are in the area."
Homewood hopes to get most of the debris cleaned up by the end of the day Friday.
"As you can see, the wires are actually down in our yard. There's transformers and a big machinery on other peoples sheds right now. So we're hoping today, they keep telling us today, but we don't have much hope for that.," Youngblood said.
ComEd crews are also working around the clock. They've been working 16-hour shifts to restore power as soon as possible.
As of about 10:45 a.m., ComEd said there were over 360 outages, affecting nearly 5,000 customers.
"Fingers crossed that today is the day, and that, for us, a resolution is coming," Sanders said.
NIPSCO said its repairs were more than 99% complete, with only about 1,500 customers left.
Most of those will be complete by Friday.
