"We were very fortunate. I don't know how we made it out as well as we did," said David Randall of Skokie.
Randall is trying not to dwell on how close he came to being seriously injured. He and a friend just had dinner on the North Side of Chicago and he was driving her home when the tree fell right after he turned on Leavitt Street.
"Suddenly the roof caved in, and it was windy, but at first I didn't realize what had happened," he said.
Randall and his friend made it out of the car and were treated at St. Francis Hospital. His friend had several cuts from the shattered windshield and sunroof, but he says both are thankful the damage wasn't worse. The car bore the brunt of the storm.
"That was our first thought when we made it out, thank goodness it was just the car," Randall said.
Also in the city, two people were hurt when a tree limb landed on a car that was moving down the street in the Bowmanville neighborhood.
In north suburban Morton Grove, toppled tree limbs fell on a car next door to the house shared by members of a rock band. They spent the morning clearing away debris.
"We didn't see all this until the morning because last night it was really, really, really dark," said band member Fernando Maciel.
Tree trimmers were busy Wednesday afternoon chopping up a tree that fell over onto a Chevy. They have many more stops to make. Their business picks up when weather is severe.
"Hopefully, we will get some more, not so bad, not so damaging, but we want some more work," said Perez Negron, Winkler's tree service.
And that could happen. According to the National Weather Service, who was surveying the damage in the north and northwest suburbs, the season for severe weather is just getting started.
"As bad as the storms were last night, there were very few reports of any injuries. Overall, we really lucked out last night," said Gino Izzi of the National Weather Service.
Izzi says the storm damage was the result of straight line winds, which in some areas were as powerful as 100 miles per hour.
