Brian Allison can`t help wondering what would have happened to him and his high school buddy if he hadn`t said a quick prayer before dashing for home through the raging storm that blew through the Chicago area Thursday.
As it was, Allison, 16, and his neighborhood friend, Michael Nykaza, 15, both of Bartlett, were struck by lightning on a tree-lined street in the west suburb.
And unlike so many others, these boys lived to tell about it.
On the way home from fishing in a local creek, the teenagers ”stopped in a shed to catch our breath, and we heard the tornado sirens and we sat down and prayed,” Brian said. ”We were almost home, about a block and a half away, and that`s when we got hit. We wonder what would have happened if we didn`t say a prayer.”
Both were listed in good condition Friday at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, where they were taken unconscious after a bolt hit Allison and then carried over to Nykaza.
Like the two teenagers, many in the Chicago area experienced feelings of helplessness as the might of nature swept through the region in a fury of funnel clouds, lightning, driving rain and 85 m.p.h. winds.
The ravaging storm came fast, furious and with a fickleness that caught many unprepared. Within minutes, roofs blew off, walls toppled over and electrical lines were downed, leaving about 100,000 residents without power as of Friday afternoon, said a Commonwealth Edison Co. spokeswoman.
Meanwhile in Chicago Heights, more than 300 people evacuated from the area Thursday after lightning caused a chemical fire at Riverdale Chemical Co. began returning home Friday morning.
The speed and power with which the storm hit Thursday afternoon also caught many at Taste of Chicago in Grant Park unaware.
More Top Picks Best Wine Corkers
”It came so suddenly, and then it was mass bedlam,” said Susan Smith, an employee at MamaTish`s Italian Ice booth on the food festival`s south side, where the storm hit the hardest.
”The ticket booth ended up back here, and the top blew off the Pepsi booth. Food was everywhere-all their pizza blew away, and we were dodging garbage cans,” Smith said.
”When you`re in a setting like this, where do you go for shelter with thousands of people here with infants and children and you`re at the mercy of picnic tables and things?” she asked.
About 200 maintenance employees worked through the night at the Grant Park grounds to clean up the half-dozen tents that were blown over and the garbage, debris and branches strewn everywhere, said operations manager Terry Dolan.
Some 125 portable toilets were blown over, but no one was in them, said Terry Levin, spokesman for the Mayor`s Office of Special Events.
Levin said that between $300,000 and $400,000 in revenues were lost Thursday because of the early closing of the food booths at 3 p.m. The food booths usually are open until 9:30 p.m.
By Friday, the Taste of Chicago grounds were back to normal. But that wasn`t the case for the tens of thousands of residents, including about 65,000 in Aurora alone, who remained without power as of 3 p.m., said Jean McNamara, an Edison spokeswoman.
About 600 crews were working to restore power to 10,000 residents per hour, she said. The restoration of power was slowed by downed trees and fallen debris that had to be cleared before employees could work on downed power lines, McNamara said.
At the peak of the outages, about 300,000 residents were without power between 3 and 4 p.m. Thursday. All power should be restored by sometime Saturday, McNamara said.
In Chicago Heights, fire evacuees spent the night at Bloom High School or with friends and relatives after police and firefighters evacuated a square-mile area around Riverdale Chemical, 220 E. 17th St., as clouds of
chemical-laden smoke driven by 30 m.p.h. winds covered the area Thursday night.
Twenty-nine people, including 14 Chicago Heights firefighters, remained hospitalized Friday in fair condition at St. James Hospital Medical Center in Chicago Heights, suffering from the effects of breathing the smoke.
Priscilla Downs, a spokeswoman for St. James, said 37 other people had been treated and released Thursday night.
Dennis Ahlberg, manager of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency`s emergency response unit, blamed the problems on 2-4D, a common agricultural insecticide that was the main chemical burned in the fire. Exposure can cause headaches, dizziness and nausea.
In Lombard, the local food festival was extended for an additional day after the storm prompted the cancellation of Thursday`s Taste of Lombard, organizers said.
A fireworks display will take place at 9 p.m. Saturday.