Surveying Storm Damage: Trees Crash Down, Brick Garage Blown Away In Schorsch Village

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The storm on Monday afternoon brought a tornado to Rogers Park, but the damage was widespread throughout the city and beyond – with trees down, homes and cars hit, and even a brick garage blown away.

CBS 2's Tara Molina spent the day in Chicago's neighborhoods as people continued to pick up the pieces Tuesday night.

In Schorsch Village on the Far Northwest Side, it was tough to get around with all the fallen trees in the street. People were hoping for some help in clearing everything away, and soon.

"It was just a freight train that came in, so fast and loud," said Christina Madrid-Hurtado – echoing a common observation for how tornadic storms sound.

Madrid-Hurtado and her husband saw the storm coming and raced downstairs, bracing for a hit.

"It was scary," she said.

They came back to find the storm had blown their brick garage down.

"Twenty-five years and this has never happened," Madrid-Hurtado said. "We're the only brick garage in the neighborhood and we're the only garage that went down."

On Tuesday, Madrid-Hurtado and her husband were working on next steps. They were thankful everyone in their neighborhood is OK, because they were not alone in the cleanup process.

Just a couple blocks away, a doorbell camera captured entire treetops break off. Some of them ended up crashing into Jennifer Carfo's house.

"My neighbor says to me, 'There's a tree in your house,'" Carfo said. "Two foot of a tree was inside; went through the roof."

With thousands of 311 calls for help with storm damage, hundreds of trees have been cleared.
According to the Department of Streets and Sanitation, their crews are working 16-hour shifts to help neighborhoods hit hard by the storm.

Until then, neighbors are helping each other.

"We have great neighbors that came over immediately and started helping us," Madrid-Hurtado said.

"Everybody came together and pitched in and we all just started working," Carfo said. "It was fun."

On Tuesday night, there were still thousands in Chicago without power. CBS 2 was told some in the Rogers Park area could be waiting until, Saturday, Aug. 15. We'll keep checking on that.