The Aurora area spent Sunday cleaning up after storms rumbled through the Fox Valley on Saturday.
The region had a series of severe thunderstorms move through the area Saturday from southern DeKalb County to southern Kane County and Kendall County, with the stormy weather continuing into the early morning hours of Sunday.
Aurora officials on Sunday morning said the thunderstorms caused widespread damage and power outages in the city.
In a message on the city’s Facebook page, officials said the city’s Street Maintenance Division has been working hard to clear right-of-ways, working with other city departments and contracted services to help streamline the clean-up process.
As far as power outages, over 16,000 ComEd customers in Aurora were affected by the storm, city officials said. More than half of those customers had their power restored as of Sunday morning, with ComEd working Sunday to restore power to the rest, according to the city.
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City officials said if residents discover downed trees and related damage from the storm, they can utilize the myAurora 311 app to file a report. The app can be downloaded at www.aurora.il.us/311.
The Fox Valley Park District also reported damage from the storms.
According to the district’s Facebook page, its Operations team has been at work assessing and addressing damage caused to its facilities, parks and trails by the storms.
“Reports from staff have indicated extensive damage in some areas, including Stuart Sports Complex, Orchard Valley Golf Course and Blackberry Farm,” according to the Facebook page.
At Stuart Sports Complex, sections of the dog park were flooded, 29 of the 41 portable toilets were blown over or displaced as were dozens of soccer goals across the 380-acre complex, district officials said.
The district urged people to use extreme caution on its trails and in its parks due to possible debris.
Montgomery was also hit by the storms, with Public Works Director Mark Wolf saying that a number of trees were blown down on the west side of town.
The last day of Montgomery Fest did begin on Sunday morning, though slightly later than planned due to the storms the day before.
Montgomery officials said that if residents have a tree or standing water on their street they should call the village’s non-emergency number of 630-553-0554 to make a report.
North Aurora also felt the brunt of the storms.
In a post on its Facebook page, the village of North Aurora said that its Public Works Department has been busy since the end of the storms clearing roadways and trees from the parkway on the far northwest side of the community where it said there was extensive tree damage.
The Public Works Department will continue to clear tree damage in the area, officials said. Also, there will be a special storm damage collection for the Mirador, Tanner Trails and Remington Landing subdivisions, where residents should bring trees, limbs and branches to the curb by the end of the day Friday, Aug. 22. This pickup is only for trees damaged by the storm, officials said.
The impact of the storms was also felt in Oswego. The third in a series of fundraisers for veterans in Kendall County was canceled Sunday due to flooding on the path in Hudson Crossing Park in the village.
Oswego first responders and veterans had planned a Run-Walk-Ruck event at the park to raise awareness for veterans’ assistance programs in Kendall County. However, Oswego police issued a statement Sunday to announce the event had been cancelled due to the flooding on the path.
Although the flooding on the walking trails subsided by Sunday afternoon, the Fox River’s current was noticeably faster than in recent days in Oswego.
Shannon Cooper and her young sons James, 10, and Jace, 6, were in Hudson Crossing Park on Sunday and noticed how fast the river’s current was moving.
“Normally, my boys can wade in the water with nets just below the park’s footbridge to catch minnows and crawfish. They can stand comfortably in knee-high water,” the Oswego mother said.
“I rarely see the water this deep and fast. This is all from the overnight storm,” Cooper said.
Cooper said there was some flooding in the Victoria Meadows and Millrace Creek subdivisions in Oswego due to the storms that has subsided as well.
While some towns in the area were hit hard by the storms, others saw limited damage. In Geneva, only one tree had been reported down as of Sunday morning. That tree, on the 700 block of South Street, has been removed from the roadway, officials said.
The impact of the storms was felt around the Chicago area, where as of 9 a.m. on Sunday, 61,000 ComEd customers were without power, the utility giant said. ComEd said it expected most outages to be restored by 9 p.m. Sunday, with some taking until 2 p.m. Monday to fully resolve.
The storms caused significant delays and cancellations at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, where, as of 8:30 a.m. Sunday, the Chicago Department of Aviation reported there had been 264 flights canceled in the previous 24 hours.
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Katherine Weaver of the baiduhai and freelance reporter Linda Girardi contributed.