Crews in Glen Ellyn work to clear downed trees, debris amid power outage from strong storms

Hundreds of Glen Ellyn residents are still waiting for power a day after powerful storms rocked the Chicago area on Monday.

This as cleanup is underway, which crews say is going slowly.

The grinding of wood chippers and the hum of generators. So many homes in this Glen Ellyn neighborhood are silenced by the power outage, but outside, the sounds of cleanup on Tuesday are deafening.

"Just debris everywhere. And when I say debris, I'm talking about branches. We're addressing, you know, branches or limbs or actual trees on homes," said Joshua Messin.

Jay Camp lives in one of the homes with a generator, which has been running for more than 24 hours. He says he believed a tornado hit the area based on the power behind it.

"I had to run back inside and make sure my kids were safe, but I had to push the door closed, which is really kind of scary," Camp said.

He says he's never seen anything like the storm that uprooted and split trees, pushing some into the front of homes—others pulling down power lines.

"Yeah, I'm kind of in shock, like, is this really happening? Like, is the wind really strong where I have to push the door shut, you know?" Camp said.

The National Weather Service said they had a team in the area today to survey the damage. ATT crews in a cherry picker were also spotted working on their lines.

Residents say they're looking up as they look forward—making sure their homes are clear should another storm roll through.

"I mean, that's part of the plan is to scale back some of the branches to make sure that they're not hanging over the house," Camp said.

Trees in the area are so big that they cannot even be run through the wood chipper, but have to be all the way. Crews said this is just one of the things that they are doing in Glen Ellyn and some of the work has been slow because of the downed power lines in the area, so they can't get to everywhere they need to go.