Anyone get nailed by the storm?

Andreas, I know there were a lot of power outages near you. Not to mention random rooftops blowing around. The el tracks just outside went haywire when a sign blew onto all the rails. There were explosions of sparks shooting into the air for what seemed like an hour. We were incredibly lucky--at work our power was intact, and that evening I walked home (about a mile) and beginning with the corner next to us all the way home nobody had electricity. When I got to our street, everyone on the north side of the street was blacked out, but our side was fine. So literally everything in between my house and work was down. The car in the photo belongs to a client of ours, and it was parked just around the corner when this happened. Sadly, they recently moved from California and only picked up liability insurance on the car...
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No power loss or wind damage around here. Flooding seems to also be minimal. I think most of the problems were north of Naperville, like west Chicago and further.

 

Yeah Jack, my area in Mt Prospect was one of the worst hit.

No power for 3 days now, and no idea when we'll get it. I have considerable damage at my house with big trees down and had to cancel going to Rodney's place.

I'm staying at a friend's place for the time being..

 

Our building lost parts of its roof and the building got some water damage. Our apartment is fine as most are, but some have been hit hard.

I really feel bad for our neighbours in the Polo Tower, they have been without power for several days. In a high rise, imagine. No lights, no cooling, no fridge and no toilet as pumps are needed to get it up there. And no elevator of course. The Red Cross is working with them.

 

I've got a client in that building. I had to go in the next day to get their dog, and fortunately they live on the 8th floor. I took my maglite--the dog was completely freaked out and barely went down the stairs. Another girl told me that on Thursday night the lobby actually turned into one huge party. Some guy was still passed out on the floor the next morning! It's amazing that there wasn't a higher toll on people.

 

They seem to have evening parties now every day since they lost power. They used to do those on the roof, now it is in the lobby. Altogether it looks like the demographics are younger people in that building than ours.

 

Yeah, except for a handful of elderly I think it's pretty young. Glad you guys came through unscathed.

 

Here some pics from that evening. Also LSD flooded partially in both directions. A Ferrari wouldn't have made it through anymore.
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Sister lives in Arlington Heights and when power was lost she flooded. So little brother was there all hursday night doing cleanup. Thank GOD nothing major. All dried up by now.

 

Still without power at my home.

Had some people doing cleanup in my yard. Many very large limbs came down, and one went through my neighbor's garage roof.

Looks that what remains of my trees will have to come down. Some of them are 70 ft tall, and I hate to think of what this will cost me.

Mainly, I can't wait to be able to go home again!

The Emp

 

How's this for lucky:

Good friend of mine, his wife was in their Honda Odessy with both kids in the car.
Start of the storm, they are less than 1 mile from home, and a tree falls on their car as she is driving.
12 inch diameter branch crashes on windshield, with about a 6 inch diameter side branch that goes THRU THE WINDSHIELD, THRU HER DASHBOARD BINNICLE, BETWEEN HER LEGS AND INTO THE FLOOR BOARD! Punctured her leg and broke her fibula. I should have taken a pic of it. Gave me goosebumps. 12 more inches forward and she would have been dead. Kids were fine.

 

The top of the elevator shaft was torn off of my building, and there was a lot of water in the bottom of the shaft from what I was told. Our elevator is still down "until further notice". The furniture I had on the balcony is pretty much destroyed... luckily I only had cheap plastic patio furniture out there. Most of the air conditioning units on the roof were destroyed as well. Luckily I was one of the few still left with air conditioning. Many of my neighbors still don't have it back yet.