Cleanup Begins In Joliet After Severe Storms, Hail

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Heavy storms caused significant damage in Joliet Saturday, and it was a close call for some people inside their homes when the bad weather hit.

"I think any time a tree this size comes down and you can see the entire roots structure it stops people their tracks," said Joliet resident Lisa Dorothy.

Dorothy's house has become a bit of an attraction. The roots of the tree lay bare at the foot of her yard, its reach catching one of her windows as its casualty, just narrowly missing her home.

"People are like, after two months in the house it's pretty exciting. I could use a little less excitement than this," she said.

She is one of many in the Joliet area left cleaning up the mess of the storm on Memorial Day weekend.

"When the sirens went off I went to the basement," she said.

The storm made a dramatic entrance.

"As I was sitting in the car a tree two doors down came flying out in front of my car and landed on the hood," said Roy Mason.

Trees tumbled, and many of them took power lines down with them.

"My neighbors are yelling, 'Don't get out! Don't get out! There's a live wire on the ground!'" he said.

Those trees caused at least 22,000 reported power outages around the Joliet area, causing confusion at intersections and concern over what this means in a pandemic.

"It's going to be stinking hot this week," said Dorothy. "We're all working from home. If I don't have power, I can't work from home."

Around the block, Carla Liburdi scooped up leftover hail by the handful.

"Maybe I should put this in a cooler right now since we don't have power and refrigerate my food that's about to spoil," she said.

"It looks like a cat scratched through every one of these screens, and the worst one is the highest up," said Liburdi.

The battle wounds looked different on every block, but there was one thing everyone agreed on: "We were safe," said Liburdi. "No one was hurt. That's the important thing. We can fix this."