Montgomery After the Storm

The brief yet intense storm that whipped through the area Monday morning left trees and power lines down, cut electricity to hundreds of thousands across the region, and backed up traffic in neighboring communities.

By 10:30 a.m., the rains and sharp winds had come and gone. officials said the damage was minimal, and limited to a few fallen trees, most notably on Montgomery Road near the center of town.That tree was removed quickly Monday morning, according to Director Mike Pubentz.

Evidence of the storm could still be seen Monday afternoon, as downed tree limbs lined corners, and damaged and wind-blown items lay in yards. At least two trampolines could be seen smashed to bits in west side front yards.

Montgomery police said their dispatch center received 21 emergency calls and sent out 32 cars for assistance, including instances of downed trees and wires, and traffic light outages. The dispatch center handles calls for Montgomery, Sugar Grove and Waubonsee Community College police departments, and fire districts in Montgomery, Aurora Township and Sugar Grove.

While traffic in Montgomery did not have to be re-routed, significant backups in Aurora and Oswego affected local commuters. Route 34 in Oswego was closed near Boulder Hill Pass until around 9:30 a.m.

The National Weather Service estimated winds of up to 70 miles per hour during the storm, which toppled trees and power lines. ComEd Spokesman Alicia Zatkowski said it was the power company’s worst storm in a decade – immediately after the storm, roughly 836,000 people were left without power, she said.

By 4 p.m., ComEd had restored power to 277,000 of those, including many in Montgomery. But in the western suburbs, 129,000 people remained in the dark Monday afternoon. (Here is ComEd's constantly-updated outage map.)

Zatkowski said ComEd expected it would take several days to bring all customers back online, but since the problem was still being assessed, she did not estimate when the full restoration would be completed.

If you have pictures or stories from the storm, we’d love to take a look. Email Editor Andre Salles at andre.salles@patch.com.