The National Weather Service is investigating multiple sites near Aurora where tornadoes may have touched down during Monday night’s severe storm, a spokesperson said on Tuesday afternoon.
The National Weather Service had crews investigating reports of tornadoes in or around Sugar Grove, Oswego and Campton Hills, among roughly 25 others throughout the Chicago area, according to Meteorologist Zackary Yack from the National Weather Service’s office in Romeoville.
The storm was strong, Yack said, the type typically seen only once a year or once every couple years. He said the storm brought about half an inch to three-quarters of an inch of rain to the Aurora area, and wind gusts of up to 43 mph were measured at the Aurora airport.
Stronger gusts, up to the 75 mph measured at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, were seen around the Chicago area Monday, according to Yack.
While tornadoes have not been confirmed in the area as of Tuesday at around 1 p.m., local authorities have reported damage at those Aurora area sites and others.
In Sugar Grove, Village Administrator Scott Koeppel said storm damage appears to be from high winds, not a tornado, but that more investigation was still needed.
According to Kane County Undersheriff Amy Johnson, the possible tornado might have started at the intersection of Route 47 and Interstate 88, but touchdown and location were not confirmed at the time of her email on Tuesday afternoon. She said several trees were down in an open field nearby.
To the south, roof damage could be seen on several houses along Meadows Drive in Sugar Grove. Shingles were seen pulled up or, in some cases, littering the ground along the road.
Dave Ahamnos, a resident of Meadows Drive, said his house fared better than those of his neighbors. Most of the damage to his house was limited to the lifted shingles on his roof, and for that, he said he was grateful.
After all, Ahamnos said he just got done paying off work to rebuild the house after a fire several years back.
The wind from the storm did, however, blow open his attic doors and fling insulation throughout his house, he said. An area resident since 2008, Ahamnos said that the storms seem to be getting worse over time.
The storm’s damage extended somewhat to the south, as a tree could be seen still on top of a house on Bastian Drive at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday. The nearby Sugar Grove Fire Department also suffered structural damage but remained operational, according to Undersheriff Johnson.
While only some of the houses had roof damage, nearly all houses on Meadows Drive and Bastian Drive had fallen limbs, trees or both. Ahamnos said many nearby cars had been hit by some of those limbs.
At around 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sugar Grove work crews could be seen in the area pushing fallen limbs into a huge wood chipper behind a truck to clean up the debris. Many residents were also out in their yards, pulling limbs to the road or cutting up larger pieces of fallen wood.
North of that area, Kedeka Road was closed through the morning due to fallen power lines but was open again by around 1 p.m. Tuesday, according to Koeppel.
In North Aurora, damage was primarily contained to the area south of Oak Street from Route 31 to Randall Road, to the west of the Fox River and north of I-88, according to North Aurora Public Works Director Brian Richter.
He said several trees fell on homes and parked cars, and some light poles were still leaning and in need of replacement, including two that caught fire during the night.
It is currently believed that the damage came from straight line winds, Richter said.
At around noon on Tuesday, a leaning electrical pole could be seen at the intersection of Roberts and John streets. Nearby, trees were pushed over all in one direction.
On nearby Kingswood Drive, there were large fallen limbs on a house, two cars and the driveway, which blocked cars in. However, a resident said the only damage to the house was the gutter hit by the fallen branch.
In Oswego, Village Administrator Dan Di Santo said in a phone call on Tuesday morning that the area just south of downtown, near the intersection of Douglas Street and Fuller Avenue, was hit the hardest by the storm.
No apparent damage to structures in the area could be seen from the road at around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, but large limbs and trees had fallen.
Sandy Zielke said two large trees and the tops of many more had fallen near her parents’ house, which sits on nearby Main Street, but she had not found any damage to the house. At around 10 a.m. on Tuesday, she was out cleaning up the fallen tree limbs on her parents’ property.
She was “shocked” that none of the trees or limbs landed on the roof of her parents’ house or garage, she said. The two fallen trees just barely missed a detached garage, which she said held old cars.
The village of Oswego also saw damage to the area southeast of downtown to the village’s Public Works facility, Di Santo said.
Other nearby communities, including Aurora, seem to have gotten by relatively unscathed.
Aurora Emergency Management Agency Coordinator Natalie Wiza said in an email on Tuesday afternoon that the agency had received less than 50 total calls for tree debris and few reports of structure damage. Around 250 residents were still out of power at the time, she said.
Montgomery saw no sizable damage from the storm, according to village Public Works Director Mark Wolf.
Portions of Geneva lost power Monday night when substations on Western Avenue and Delnor Drive went offline when a ComEd feeder line dropped service, according to city spokesperson Kevin Stahr. He said in an email that power was restored at around 1:15 a.m. Tuesday.
Six trees were damaged in Geneva during the Monday night storm, he said.
St. Charles primarily saw tree debris during the storm, according to city spokesperson Lisa Garhan. She said there were some localized power outages from tree debris hitting electrical lines but all power was restored by Tuesday morning.
While there have been no confirmed tornado touchdowns at time of reporting, tornado warnings went out across the Aurora region during the Monday night storm.
Those warnings disrupted an Indian Prairie School District 204 Board of Education meeting being held Monday night. At around 9:30 p.m., board members, district staff and meeting attendees moved to the ground floor of the district headquarters and stayed in interior rooms until the all clear was given, at which point the meeting resumed.
The city of St. Charles’ meetings scheduled for Monday night weren’t given the chance to be interrupted by the storm, as they were canceled earlier in the day.
Both St. Charles and Geneva spent most of Monday cleaning up from another strong storm that came through on Sunday, which also caused power outages and fallen trees, according to communications from the two cities.
Undersheriff Johnson said Sunday night’s storm left around a dozen homes in St. Charles damaged, along with three multi-family buildings.
Elburn also saw significant damage from the confirmed touchdown of an EF-0 tornado on Sunday night, which Johnson said damaged around 20 homes, with upwards of five reporting significant damage.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
