Aug 5, 2008 5:21 pm US/Central
Tornado Leaves Houses In Tatters In Bolingbrook
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (CBS) ―
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The tornadic storm on Monday left some houses destroyed in Bolingbrook.
CBS
Southwest suburban Bolingbrook was one of three communities hit by a confirmed tornado Monday night, and many residents have been hit hard.
As CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports, officials say the Bolingbrook neighborhood near Silverado Street and Maroon Bells Lane was hardest hit. Roofing and siding materials were strewn about streetside, and some 50 homes had some form of damage.
National Weather Service crews reported Tuesday that one of the three tornados that struck the Chicago area touched down in Bolingbrook, with wind speeds between 65 and 109 miles per hour.
The damage was severe soon after the first storm began around 8 p.m. last night.
"We went to the window and looked, and saw our fence blowing away," said Janet Surma. She and her family immediately took cover.
When Surma and her family emerged from their home about 15 minutes later, they saw damage all around them. The storms, in Surma's words, popped up without much warning, and really packed a punch.
Just doors away, two houses were left unfit to live in.
"As you can see, we had significant structural damage," said Robert Mierop of the Bolingbrook Fire Department. "We had a report of a wind gust up to 85 miles an hour last night."
One homeowner whose house is now uninhabitable gave CBS 2 News an up-close look at the damage to his home and garage.
Rob Novotny said, "As you can see, the whole roof is torn off." His garage wasn't what it used to be on Tuesday. Its door was on the lawn, beams were bent and a tarp covered the opening where the roof once was. "It's on the neighbor's lawn," Novotny said.
Novotny's roof clipped the neighbor's chimney on the way over, knocking a chunk of the chimney off the house.
The Novotny family was not alone. Many homes had piles of debris on their front lawn Tuesday morning. Many also had boarded up doors and windows.
Thankfully, there were no injuries, Mierop said. But that was a stroke of luck. At Laura Quatier's house, a crib where her young daughter could have been sleeping in her bed when the wind shattered a nearby window and sent glass flying.
Quatier is relieved they were not home.
"Thank God we weren't here," Quatier said. "She could have been in bed sleeping or upstairs playing, but we weren't here, so that was good."
No warning sirens went off in Bolingbrook Monday night. A fire department spokesman said that was because the tornado and other severe weather hit Bolingbrook before the National Weather Service and tornado spotters had a chance to issue warnings that would have prompted them to pull alarms.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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