Tornado damage remains in Hainesville

HAINESVILLE – Hainesville residents are still cleaning up from a tornado swept through Lake County earlier this month.

A tornado with an EF-1 intensity touched down the evening of Aug. 2 and traveled more than seven miles through Round Lake, Hainesville, Grayslake and Wildwood, damaging several homes and businesses.

“There were very few houses that weren’t affected one way or another on our street,” said Georgeann Duberstein, a village trustee and resident of Tall Oak Drive. “Everything was just shaking. It was a scary thing.”

Duberstein said items were blown from the south side of the street to the north side of the street. When the storm had passed, residents discovered a chimney that blew across the road, a chair impaled on a second-story window and a garage door that was completely pushed in.

“We still have some siding from somebody’s house hanging in our trees,” Duberstein said last week.

Duberstein added the tornado came through so quickly, it had already passed by the time the sirens went off. She said it ripped through the street in a matter of minutes. Two houses on Tall Oak Drive were deemed uninhabitable; one has since been repaired.

“There are signs out in front of nearly every house for some kind of roofing company,” Duberstein said, adding plenty of her neighbors still have tarps covering their roofs and are awaiting repair work for other damage.

Trees, particularly in the Cranberry Lake area, were also damaged. Duberstein said at one point there were at least 40 people working within the village to take care of “widow makers,” dangerous hanging tree branches

Mayor Linda Soto said a significant number of residents suffered damage to both their homes and their trees.

“Residents lost trees in their yards and [the village] lost a lot of parkway trees,” Soto said.

Soto added that had the village not been in the process of ash tree removal due to the Emerald Ash Borer, there could have been even more damage from these weakened trees.

“I’m very proud of our small public works crew and our contractors,” Soto said, adding the village also received help from neighboring townships, particularly for assistance in the Cranberry Lake area.

The village’s crews were so effective, they had streets cleared and brush pushed aside within a couple hours. The village even sent people to help Grayslake once their own streets were cleared, Soto said, adding clean-up is ongoing but slowing down. The next step is to take inventory and assess any further damage.

Soto said residents have generally been very supportive and grateful, but their biggest challenge has been dealing with insurance companies. Soto said the village is making every effort to process permits very quickly.

“Storm recovery is high priority,” Soto said.

Anytime a weather event rips through a town, contractors, both legit and not, come, too, Soto said, advising that residents should always ask to see a contractor’s solicitors permit.

“If they don’t have [a permit], my recommendation is to tell them to come back when [they] have a permit from the village,” Soto said.