UPDATE: St. Charles Cleans Up After Massive Storm Sweeps Through

Update 11:30 a.m.

Power has mostly been restored throughout St. Charles with the exception of a pocket near Walnut and 19th Street, City Administrator Brian Townsend reported late this morning. A pole supporting lines snapped in Sunday's storm and crews are working to restore power to the approximately 80 households affected. Townsend said there are also a handful of individual homes without electrical service, but expects those homes to be back online by mid-afternoon. Electrical crews from St. Charles and the city of Princeton have been completing restoration projects.

"Things are looking pretty good for us power-wise right now," he said.

Tree cutting and removal is also well underway. Townsend said city officials redirected outside tree services contracted to remove trees affected by the Emerald Ash Borer to help with the cleanup.

With the amount of trees and limbs brought down by the storm, Townsend said city leaders will discuss the possibility of having a special brush pickup. That decision could come later today or possibly Tuesday.

Park District officials are also working on debris cleanup as well. Park District Director Holly Cabel said most of the trees in the parks survived the storm, although many branches and limbs were brought down. She spent Monday morning surveying storm damage.

Update 8:30 a.m.

The sound of chainsaws accompanied typical early morning sounds in St. Charles as residents and city crews work to clean up after a massive thunderstorm swept through the area Sunday.

Power outages and downed trees were reported across the city and some residents this morning reported on the St. Charles Patch Facebook page they are still without power. Crews worked into the night to repair power lines and will continue to work this morning, Tom Bruhl, electric services manager for St. Charles, said in an email.

On Sunday there were widespread outages across the city. In an email exchange Bruhl said three of the nine ComEd lines for the city are out. The northeast and northwest quadrants are where the majority of the outages are located, he reported. He said 2 p.m. is the target for power to be restored to residents.

"We are scrambling now to try to figure out how to use internal ties to restore our customers," he said in an email.

Early Sunday evening Bruhl reported that most residents had power restored, but some pockets remained without power. Power should be completely restored Monday, he said.

Day turned to night as a wave of severe thunderstorms swept through the Tri-Cities Sunday, wreaking havoc with widespread power outages and downed trees and other debris. According to the National Weather Service winds in St. Charles reached 70 miles per hour.

Around noon Sunday St. Charles police responded to multiple storm related calls, most dealing with downed trees and other debris, as well as having to respond to security alarms that went off as a result of power interruptions, said Paul McCurtain, police public information coordinator.

Although police responded to a number of calls, there were no calls for traffic accidents resulting from the storm, he said.

Other reports from around the Tri-Cities included:

• Tents at the Kane County Fairgrounds were twisted by the high winds.
• Lightning strikes a transformer.
• A possible fire is reported at Peck and Keslinger roads.
• A general alarm fire is reported at Willow and Center in Geneva.
• A tree is down on Route 31—not sure where.
• There are reports of wires down at North Kirk Road in Geneva.
• Quarter-size hail has been reported.

Patch will update this report when information is available from official sources.

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