EF0 tornadoes did some damage in Joliet, Crest Hill and Manhattan

For three tornadoes landing in the area, it could have been a lot worse early Saturday morning.

“We were all very lucky,” Crest Hill Mayor Ray Soliman said Monday.

No one was injured, and even the property damage wasn’t that bad as the EF0 tornadoes touched down in areas of Crest Hill, Joliet, Romeoville, Manhattan and Naperville.

EF0 is the lowest rating for tornadoes, indicated wind speeds of 65 mph to 85 mph.

At those speeds, a tornado did peel back sections of two tin roofs on historic farm buildings at the Round Barn Farm in Manhattan.

Another one knocked down a lot of tree limbs at the Mount Moriah Cemetery in Joliet.

That tornado started in Romeoville outside Lewis University on the edge of the village and did most of its damage in Crest Hill and Joliet.

The one report of an uprooted tree from the storm was in Crest Hill, where the shingles of one garage roof also were torn off.

The tornado hit an area in Crest Hill between Theodore Street and Elsie Avenue from north to south and between Wilcox and Nicholson streets from east to west.

It then crossed into Joliet where it hit the Mount Moriah Cemetery outside St. Joseph’s Park and a concentrated area of the neighborhood nearby.

“It looked like it kind of dropped in there,” said Joliet Fire Chief Greg Blaskey.

Blaskey said there was tree damage in an area running along Clement Street from Ingalls Avenue to Mount Moriah Cemetery, but that was about it.

Some of the most severe damage of the storm occurred in Naperville, where a tornado touched down somewhere in the vicinity of the White Eagle Golf Course and did damage along Route 59.

In Will County, the storm produced another tornado in the Manhattan area.

“We did not get significant damage,” said Jackie O’Hara, public information officer for the Manhattan Fire Protection District.

A couple of tin roofs were damaged at the Round Barn Farm, but the historic rural setting managed by the Manhattan Park District was not significantly altered by the tornado.

“It wasn’t like the whole roof came off,” O’Hara said. “It was just peeled back.”

Manhattan firefighters also got three calls for service for electric wires being down. Blaskey said Joliet got two calls for down power lines.

In Crest Hill and Romeoville, officials urged residents to put any tree limbs knocked down by the storm at their curbs where city crews will come by and run them through chippers.