'We couldn't tell if the house was even still there': Marengo resident returns home to $40,000 in tornado damages

As Lisa Mitchell arrived at her Marengo home Monday evening, after the worst of the storm passed late, she said her heart immediately sank.

“It was just dread,” Mitchell said in an interview Wednesday. “We couldn’t tell if the house was even still there at first because it was raining so bad and the trees are so tall that are knocked over that the branches cover everything.”

A tornado touched down near Marengo about 3:05 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service, which also identified a tornado just across the border near Spring Grove in Lake County.

Mitchell’s five-acre property off Maple Street south of Marengo will require upward of $40,000 in repair work after the tornado uprooted large trees, causing damage to her driveway, home and garage, she said. The storm’s high winds pulled a tree down and through the roof of her detached garage and sent the cover of her propane tank flying before landing nearly an acre away, Mitchell said.

She and her father, Mark Wituk, came home to find their geese and ducks hobbling around the neighbor’s yard, dazed and confused, but otherwise unscathed.

One of Mitchell’s neighbors, Robert Klein, said he would have arrived home right in the thick of the storm if he hadn’t decided to stop off to get his tire pressure checked on the way home from work.

“When I first pulled up, I saw my neighbors sitting in their driveway and I saw trees all across their side and I got a giant tree down on my side,” Klein said Wednesday. “So I get out of my truck and I just started pulling some of the branches out, and then all of a sudden I realized the magnitude of the damage.”

Klein took pride in the soaring pines and spruce trees on his property, many of which were damaged or broken entirely in the storm, he said. The tree removal costs are estimated to cost $8,500.

“I think they took the hit and actually saved my house from really severe damage,” Klein said.

The NWS is conducting surveys, but the process has so far identified 11 tornadoes, the westernmost in the Rockford area through McHenry County and down toward Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.

Several tornadic circulations developed within the main line of thunderstorms that swept across the region Monday, according to the NWS. These tornadoes resulted in more extensive damage in the affected areas, including parts of Chicago’s Far North Side, the western suburbs and far northeast Illinois.

The NWS also identified a lone supercell around the Rockford area that subsequently was absorbed by the larger storm.

The tornado identified southeast of Marengo started on Harmony Road immediately southwest of Interstate 90 near the McHenry and DeKalb county line, according to the NWS. It ended about six minutes later near Coral and Dunham roads.

The damage has brought Mitchell’s family a lot of stress, she said. Her homeowner’s insurance won’t cover much of the cost of removing the roughly 16 trees that broke or blew over.

“We don’t really have an extra $7,000 sitting around to deal with taking out a bunch of trees,” she said. “With [COVID-19] and everything, I’ve been trying to just save anything we can just in case either of us have to stop working or, you know, anything else happens, but we don’t have this.”

While he is feeling similarly overwhelmed, Klein said he is trying to see the bright side of his situation.

“I’m trying to keep a good, positive attitude,” he said. “Houses and cars, all that stuff can be replaced so I’m just trying to keep that in mind.”

Tree damage consistent with winds about 95 mph was found immediately northeast of I-90 in Marengo, according to the NWS survey. No injuries or fatalities have been reported.

A second tornado touched down in the northwestern portion of Lake County near Channel Lake at 3:41 p.m. Monday. The tornado was about 150 yards wide with winds of up to 90 mph, according to the NWS.

The Channel Lake tornado traveled north to Camp Lake in Wisconsin and dissipated over the lake about seven minutes after touching down, the survey found. The majority of damage caused by the tornado consisted of broken or uprooted trees, but the most significant structural damage occurred in the northwest portion of Lake County near Spring Grove.

Fewer than 800 ComEd customers in McHenry County remained without power as of about 4 p.m. Wednesday, down from 3,772 in the county as of Tuesday evening and 16,535 as of 8:30 p.m. Monday, according to the ComEd website.

The company has about 132,000 customers in McHenry County, according to ComEd’s website.