After emerging from the basement of her house Monday evening, Brenda Evans described the devastation she saw in front of her as “the biggest 10-second mess you’ve ever seen.”

Tornado sirens had been sounding off and on throughout the afternoon at Evans’ house, located on the 2200 block of Fenstermaker Road in unincorporated Sycamore. Around 6 p.m., Brenda Evans was in the garage and her husband Ken was in his shop with their dog when the wind picked up and debris started flying.

“My husband yelled to me, ‘Basement, now,’ he picked up the dog and we ran into the basement as fast as we could,” she said. “We made it into the basement just in time. Ten seconds later, we looked out the basement window and [the storm] was all over. My husband exited the basement first and told me to come out slowly. Looking out at what we saw, it was just awful. We grabbed each other and sobbed. It’s all we could do.”

[ Photos: The cleanup begins a day after tornadoes ripped through DeKalb County ]

Several tornado touchdowns have now been confirmed in DeKalb County, and one 11 miles northeast in Kane County, following Monday night’s severe storms, said a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Tuesday. An EF-0 tornado was confirmed near Esmond in the far northwest of DeKalb County. There was an EF-U tornado south of Kirkland, an EF-0 tornado somewhere between Creston and Esmond which tracked into DeKalb County just north of Malta, an EF-1 just northeast in Burlington in nearby Kane County. The fifth tornado, an EF-1 touched down in Sycamore, where on Monday night the National Weather Service said the heaviest damage was reported. There were also tornadoes in McHenry and Lee counties.

No injuries to people were reported in Monday’s storms, confirmed Andy Sullivan, chief deputy with the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, though significant property damage was reported across the county.

Ken’s shop was missing its roof, two buildings were gone, debris and tree limbs were littered everywhere, a trailer was turned around and moved at least 50 feet and a metal windmill was destroyed. Their house and attached garage moved off of its foundation and some windows had been blown out, but were otherwise left untouched by the tornado.

Brenda said that some objects have disappeared and have not yet been found. The frame of their 1953 Studebaker remains, but the body parts are gone. A photo of Ken that was hanging on a wall was found 2 miles away in someone else’s yard.

“There’s not much we can do, 23 years of work are completely gone,” Brenda said. “I just ask everyone to please give us our privacy. Stay away and don’t try to loot. It’s already difficult enough.”

Megan Gerwig and her husband Scott Wetzel’s house on the 2200 block of Airport Road in unincorporated Sycamore overlooks the Evans’ property to the east.

Gerwig said when she noticed the wind pick up, she saw pieces of the Evans’ metal buildings lift into the air.

“We saw building pieces lift off the ground and swirl in the air, and a big piece of roof came off and hit our house,” Gerwig said. “It was like ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ I could feel the pressure change and all our ears popped. We ran into the basement with our three dogs, and we heard debris hitting our house.”

When Gerwig and her family exited their basement, she said the damage they saw “was nothing like we could have expected.” Gerwig’s family, dogs and farm animals survived the tornado, although one of their horses was injured in the head by debris.

“Our house was OK, but there were trees uprooted everywhere,” Gerwig said. “Some trees are no longer there, there’s just a hole in the ground. There was a grove of evergreen trees that are now at an angle. We had a seating area in the backyard, and the carpet is wrapped around fallen trees and the lights are gone. Everything is either missing or flattened.”

Across the street from Gerwig, Melody Linneman was sitting on her front porch and talking to her husband on her cell phone when a warning alert went off on her phone.

“As I was running into my house, the windows were blowing out around me,” she said. “I was in shock, and it was scary. Some people say they hear a noise like a freight train. I didn’t hear anything. I just saw stuff flying around and knew it was dangerous.”

Linneman, her husband and his mother were building a new house behind their current house. Construction of the new house would have been completed in October. The tornado demolished Linneman’s shed, milk house, a grove of trees and damaged her house and her new house under construction.

“Now we have to rebuild our new home from scratch,” she said. “There’s a canoe hanging through the window of my new house.”

Linneman’s family, two dogs and farm animals were not hurt by the storm, and she said she now has to find a place to live while her new house is torn down and reconstructed.

“I think everything happens for a reason,” she said. “If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. There’s been so much support and help from everyone so far. This is just the kind of thing you never thought would happen to you, and it happened to me, here in Sycamore.”

Will Wittwer was on his way home from work when a tornado demolished the old red barn on his Kirkland property.

Wittwer describes the remnants of what used to be his barn, located on the 5000 block of Baseline Road in Kirkland, as “flat like a pancake.”

“There’s hardly anything standing,” he said. “It looks like a house of cards that folded completely in. ... I didn’t see the tornado, but others did. It had enough power to pick the barn up 20 feet from its foundation and slam it back down to the ground.”

The tornado’s path can be seen through the nearby cornfield.

“We were working on restoring the barn, and it was one of the reasons we bought the property about two years ago,” Wittwer said. “Hopefully, with insurance money we’ll be able to rebuild or place a new building, but you can’t replace old barns like that. The barn is what makes the farm historic, and it’s now it’s history.”

Wittwer said that the renters that live on his property were not home at the time of the storm and that nobody was hurt.

“I’m just glad that nobody was injured,” he said. “Everyone is ok, and that’s what is most important.”

Daily Chronicle reporter Katie Finlon contributed to this story.