Bad Storm In Oak Lawn and Neighboring Towns

Posted under Events, Local News by judyo

I was surprised my Mom hadn’t called about the storm that damaged my house this past Monday since she calls with every bad sounding weather report for our area (she now lives in California). There doesn’t seem to be much press for Monday night’s storm that caused damage in Bridgeview, Hickory Hills, Oak Lawn and surrounding suburbs. I’d think it was just because I was too busy cleaning up to read about it but not hearing from Mom made me realize that not much was made of it across the nation. She had finally heard a news blurb about a couple days after the fact.

Some neighbors were mentioning that it had to be a tornado. Part of our roof was blown off but I think very heavy winds could have done that, not necessarily a funnel cloud. But then I drove past a large tree that several people were talking about around 54th Ave. & Southwest Highway in Oak Lawn. The tree trunk was all that was left yesterday when I drove by but you could see how it was sucked up and took the sidewalk with it. I can’t imagine just a heavy wind doing that.

Our back yard is still a jungle of large & small tree branches that we don’t have the time or manpower to carry it all out yet. However, since Oak Lawn has not cleaned up the debris we already have out front and in the alley, there isn’t any place else to put it.

I haven’t had the chance to drive through other towns that were also hit hard but I’m wondering if their debris is still sitting out. I realize a lot of damage was done and the clean-up job is huge but I still expected the stuff we put out on Tuesday would have been picked up by now.

The most important thing was that no one was hurt at our house. If a huge tree limb had hit a few feet closer it would have caused even further damage and could have landed on my 4 year old granddaughter sitting at a desk in the family room. We can replace the damage to the home (hopefully). So there is still something to feel lucky for. It was still a devasting and scary experience.