BOOM. At first I thought it was really close lightning (it was a crazy storm).
But it was louder than lightning. Poor Charlie woke up and started calling out nervously, "Mamaaaa??? Mommy???" Eli slept right through it. Ben was already at work, so he missed all the fun. :) My neighbor called a few minutes later and said, "Sarah, I don't want to alarm you, but a tree just fell on your house."
Nope. Not alarmed!
:)
I'm so, so glad she warned me though because I would have completely lost it if I had gone downstairs and noticed the massive tree hanging over the family room roof.
It was a huge mess and the tree brought down a power line with it. The tree was removed two days later, but we had three days with a power line dangling off of our house and into the grass. So lovely. The fire department came initially and told me to leave right away because of the risk of fire (from the power line touching the house), but later we figured out that it wasn't a live wire anymore since it wasn't connected to a pole, just to the house next door.
It was a huge mess and the tree brought down a power line with it. The tree was removed two days later, but we had three days with a power line dangling off of our house and into the grass. So lovely. The fire department came initially and told me to leave right away because of the risk of fire (from the power line touching the house), but later we figured out that it wasn't a live wire anymore since it wasn't connected to a pole, just to the house next door.
We lost power for one day, but our poor neighbors went for days without it because of that power line in our yard. Stinky ComEd was swamped with 850,000 customers who lost power in the storm. That's right - 850,000 homes or apartments without power. It was nuts. Some people finally got their power back today, five days later. FIVE DAYS. 
Looking on the bright side, we were all safe, the tree didn't crash through the roof into our house, and this mess in the picture above is all cleaned up now. For the most part.
We still have to get the roof/gutters fixed in some places and fix the pergola on the deck. But all things considered, we were pretty lucky. There were trees down on almost every block in our city and all around Chicago. It looked like a tornado came through, except there were no funnel clouds. Huge old gigantic trees were uprooted, leaving huge holes behind.
Our insurance agent said he has worked here for 27 years and has never seen anything like this in our area. That destructive storm didn't even last that long!! Maybe 30 minutes?
It's craziness. I'm ready for life to get back to normal!!
