Storm ripped through Crystal Lake late Monday night, causing damage

When a tree came down in Sean Therens’ front yard late Monday night, he said he thought an earthquake hit his Crystal Lake house.

What he felt was part a towering maple tree in the front yard coming down against the house. Until the tree is cleared and an insurance adjustor can make it out, he won’t know the extent of possible damage, he said Tuesday afternoon.

The Crystal Lake Avenue home sits on a corridor of the city that saw plenty of damage from the storm that rolled through late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, with entire trees coming out of the ground and limbs snapping off, Crystal Lake Public Works Director Mike Magnuson said.

The majority of damage was reported from Route 14 and north of the lake, Magnuson said. Residents started calling early with damage reports, asking for city crews to come pick up brush, he said.

Residents in the affected area only and with branches up to 6 feet in length and 6 inches in diameter can call public works for a pickup, Magnuson said. Residents can also drop off brush from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the first and third Saturday of every month from April through November at 410 S. Main St.

By 5 a.m Tuesday, the McHenry County Sheriff’s Office had deputies called to 10 locations in connection to the storm, two involving downed power lines, agency spokeswoman Emily Matusek said.

The storm stretched from Rockford to Belvidere and all the way into Chicago, said Scott Lincoln, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Romeoville office. Most of the damage reports it received involved tree damage and snapped power lines with some roofing material damage, Lincoln said.

What they did not have was reports of tornados.

“Our best information is there were a number of corridors of straight line winds from those storms,” Lincoln said.

More storms were expected Tuesday evening and into the overnight hours.

A tornado warning was issued for central McHenry County but then cancelled as rotation rapidly weakened, the National Weather Service said on Twitter. The risk of severe wind risk continued, however, it said.

By the weekend, however, daytime temperatures were expected to come down into the 80 degree range with much lower dew points and the risk of storms is expected to ease, Lincoln said.

Cleanup from Monday night left tree care companies running wood chippers and chainsaws throughout Tuesday.

Jose Lopez of Top of the Line Tree Care was feeding limbs through a wood chipper Tuesday afternoon near Asbury Park. He started driving the neighborhood at 10 a.m., looking for areas with the most damage and knocking on doors.

“There are a lot of trees down, but it is mostly broken branches” they were cleaning up, Lopez said. He had to wait for his own street in Elgin to get cleared before he could head out to meet clients, Lopez said.

Paulette Lopez of Davey Tree Services said homeowners from around the region called Tuesday for storm damaged trees.

“We have seen triple or quadruple the number of calls” from an average weekend, she said. “Crystal Lake was part of a corridor of damage.”

She recommended homeowners who lost limbs and branches contact an arborist to make sure the trees didn’t have more damage than what they initially saw.

“We are hitting higher storm system time of the year. After the storm, go take a look at what the damage is” before the next storm comes through, she said.

Branches near the house, patio or other structures should get a closer look to prevent more damage from the next storm, she said.

Therens talked to four or five tree services Tuesday for an estimate. He may need to take down the entire maple tree. The tree appeared to have several large cracks in other branches and the trunk.

“It is a beautiful, beautiful tree” and taking it out will completely change the curb appeal of the house his family has been in for a year, he said.

He said he hopes the house was not damaged beyond what he could see from the outside.

“We are hoping the integrity is still good. We felt the house shift, it really did feel like an earthquake” he said.