Repair crews worked overtime and many homeowners took the day off work Tuesday to repair damage done by a band of swift but violent storms that hit Chicago and some suburbs Monday evening.
The storms, some of which lasted no more than a few minutes, knocked out power to 34,000 Commonwealth Edison customers, delayed hundreds of airline passengers and knocked trees onto cars and houses.
Power had been restored Tuesday to customers affected by Monday’s storms, but a group of milder storms Tuesday morning created blackouts for another 5,500 customers. About 2,000 customers, including 200 in Chicago, remained without power as repair crews continued to work late Tuesday.
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A third wave of storms passed south of the Chicago area Tuesday afternoon, and the threat of lightning strikes kept United Airlines flights through O’Hare International Airport scaled back by 20 percent, Chicago aviation officials said.
DuPage and southern Cook Counties were hit hardest by Monday’s storms, which produced 50 m.p.h. winds and dumped one-half to 1 1/2 inches of rain across the area in about an hour, said National Weather Service Meteorologist Bill Nelson.
Parts of rural Kane County and Wheaton were hammered by microbursts, violent storms that usually last only a few minutes.
Microbursts are created when hot, moist air rises and collides with pockets of cool air. The release of wind and rain shoots straight down and spreads out along the ground at the point of impact. Once that happens, the winds are short-lived, but pack a powerful punch, Nelson said.
Paula Brashear of Wheaton was at home when a microburst hit her neighborhood just south of Wheaton College.
“It was like someone opened up a faucet,” said Brashear, 45. “There was a tremendous amount of thunder and lightning, and at one point the wind was blowing the rain sideways.”
After hearing a loud thud, Brashear discovered that her neighbor’s towering pine tree had snapped in two, the top half landing on the 2001 Buick Century she bought six months ago.
“I guess fate just didn’t want that car to be as nice as it was,” Brashear said as she surveyed the crumpled rear end, broken windows and soaked interior.
“But we could have had a tragedy here,” she said. “If that tree had landed 2 feet closer to the house, it would have taken out the bathroom where my daughter was taking a shower.”
Brashear, a nurse, took the day off from work to help clean up, while her husband and two neighbors cut the tree’s remains and dragged them to the curb to be picked up.
At least a dozen people reported significant damage to their homes or cars, said Wheaton Police Lt. Don Wilson.
No injuries were reported, but downed tree limbs and disabled traffic signals along Roosevelt Road created minor traffic problems.
Power line repair crews and private tree-removal services fanned out across Wheaton and parts of Glen Ellyn Tuesday morning.
Mike Kinsch and his crew spent more than 12 hours replacing toppled utility poles and restringing power lines starting just after midnight.
“I had just gotten to bed Monday night when I got the call. I got maybe an hour of sleep,” said Kinsch, who works for an electrical repair company that contracts with ComEd.
More than 100 United flights were canceled and many flights were delayed for up to two hours Tuesday, said Chicago aviation spokeswoman Monique Bond.
About 400 cots were rolled out Monday to accommodate O’Hare passengers whose flights were delayed overnight.
Midway had shorter, more sporadic delays, Bond said.