Stormy
weather!
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May 20th update: Wilmette (and the rest of the North Shore) was pounded by severe storms Thursday afternoon, May 18th. Here are links to local newspaper articles (pictures below):
The damage from the storms came from "microbursts," or strong wind drafts that drop vertically from the top of the thunderstorms, said Bill Nelson, meteorologist for the National Weather Service. Some downdrafts during Thursday's storms were recorded at 80 m.p.h., and hail of up to 2 1/2 inches around pounded the area, Nelson said. We didn't see much hail in Wilmette, but lots of our beautiful oak trees were snapped in half! Laurie and I saw lots of ~2 foot diameter trees snapped in half, many falling across streets, train tracks, and on houses (including two trees that fell on the roof of a house at the end of our street.). Saturday's Tribune had a picture (not on-line) of a tree crushing a car just a few blocks from here. One man was killed in Wilmette while driving near 15th & Lake Street. The train was blocked for awhile because of fallen trees. We lost power for ~24 hours (some parts of Wilmette will be without power for almost three days), but had no physical damage to our house. Luckily, Friday was the start of my "summer hours", so I stayed home in the morning on the telephone (sitting in the dark basement listening to a 2 hour meeting!), then spent the rest of Friday with Laurie and Ewa buying dry ice for our freezer, then moving food to a friend's refrigerator until we regained power. We didn't have too much to clean up, just leaves and small branches in the yard. Here's a picture of the
house at the end of our street: A tree next to the railroad tracks split in half. A ~3 foot diameter tree fell on a playground. A large oak tree split in half and fell on the
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Rocket
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