Severe Weather 2007

We were hit with "severe weather" this Thursday, with 80-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains. The northern suburbs where I live took some of the hardest hits, so much so that two days later many blocks are still without power and most of the trees haven't even been cleaned up yet. To my New England eyes, it looks like the aftermath of a hurricane, although that's not what they're calling it. Whatever it was, it was a doozy. Lots of pictures follow!

Look at the size of this tree that was brought down by the wind. We think it was because the ground was so saturated with water, the roots had nothing to hold onto and it couldn't hang on. It took huge chunks of grass with it!



Luckily, there was little residual damage; the tree only fell on a large shrub wall and onto an empty street on the other side.



This is fairly typical on the sides of streets right now.



Look closely at this next one: the roots are actually intertwined with cement blocks! Didn't help it withstand the wind, though.



This time, the tree did damage.



A LOT of damage.



If you had your car at this body shop, you are likely a very unhappy customer. Now it's in worse shape than when you brought it in!



This one broke my heart. I love old cars!



Two days later, this is a typical side street.



But help is on the way!



I heard today that they are bringing in electric company workers from out-of-state to help. Good thing, we need it! According to the latest Village report, 6800 residents in Glenview still don't have power. (We're fine -- we even got our cable back up this afternoon. Whew, we missed the internet more than we thought we would!)

Although we are not near a river, we do have water issues. Techny Basin, a conservation area, handles the overflow of water during bad storms. This is what it looked like this morning.



Luckily, I was also there last summer so you can see how it normally looks at this time of year.



Yeah, let's look at that again.

Now, after the "severe weather":



Before, on a normal summer day:



!!!!!!!!!

We're as floored as you. I'm not sure if the depth comes across in the photo, but the bottom of the basin is probably twenty-five to thirty feet down -- and the bike path that travels around the edges of it is exactly one mile. That is a whole lotta water, people! (More on Techny Basin and the rain overflow here.)

But all is not doom and gloom. Our most favorite hotdog stand, fRedhots & Fries, is one of the many businesses in town without power. But that doesn't keep an ingenius man like Fred down -- he had an impromptu outdoor cookout today!



People loved the idea, and quickly lined up. Including my husband and me. :)



The guys were working hard.



People started coming from all over the place. Just in the short time we were there, they ran out of Polish! Hahaha.



Leave it to good old fRedhots to make the day brighter.





So that's how my town looks now.