The Fox Valley Park District continues after heavy storms at the weekend with clean-up and repair efforts.
The thunderstorms on Saturday, which continued on Sunday in the early morning, caused facilities, parks and hiking trails and in particular in “extensive” damage to Stuart Sports Complex, the Orchard Valley Golf Course and the Blackberry Farm.
Officials said on Monday that no facilities were closed outside of their regular schedule, but work is still being carried out to recover from the storms.
“This is a methodical, prioritized reaction with considerable work, both from repair and visibility,” said Jerad Campbell, director of Fox Valley Park operations. “We immediately enter into all the dangers and prioritize other projects as a resource permit.”
The first inspections showed that the 56-year-old Living History Museum of District on the Blackberry Farm was hardest, with dozens of trees that were completely uprooted by Park District, Tim Wagner.
The “shadow sail” around the Discovery Scheune in the northwest of the park and a tent that was used for summer camp activities were also destroyed, he said.
The farm was closed on Sunday, said Wagner, and the employees are working on Friday to reopen the facility. Since it started comfortably under autumn hours on Monday, it should be closed during the week and should only be open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
In Stuart Sports Complex, “order” was “restored” after strong winds scattered tubborn cans and garbage, around or 27 of the 41 portable toilets of the park were moved and dozens of football goals were scattered over the 380 hectare location, said Wagner.
“It is noteworthy that the toilets and goals are all weighted, so that a good snapshot delivers to the power of these winds, especially at Stuart, where it is so open,” he said.
According to Wagner, the gates and the dog park of the complex, where it flooded and scattered debris, were open from Monday morning. He said the park's schedule over the weekend was easy and the last football game on Saturday was completed before the first wave of storms came through.
The Orchard Valley Golf Course has badly damaged many trees and wooden fences, said Wagner. The 32-year course is in the middle of a modernization and renovation project of $ 8.8 million, he noted.
In the tennis courts of the Washington Middle School, the storm damaged the tennis equipment and the warehouse shed roof damage.
And according to Wagner, the winds of the storms destroyed three shadow roofs near the Cabanas in the Splash Country Water Park. He noticed that the park is currently closed for the season.
As for the four hiking trails of the Park District – Gilman Trail, Fox River Trail, Waubonsie Creek Trail and Illinois Prairie Path – are all open after the employees have driven you to clear all the dangers, said Wagner. However, civil servants encourage those who use the hiking trails to navigate at the same time because there are some rubble.
All information provided by Wagner was based on initial inspections, and other problems may arise, he said.
The series of severe thunderstorms that rolled through the Fox Valley on Saturday moved from the southern Dekalb County to Southern Kane County and Kendall County, although the stormy weather was continued until the early hours of Sunday.
In addition to the damage to the Fox Valley Park District, many regional communities also reported damage and other effects of the storms, including the city of Aurora, which suffered from widespread damage and power failures.
From Monday at around 2 p.m., according to a city spokesman, over 300 service requests were submitted via the new Myaurora 311 service. Aurora's street maintenance department of Aurora, all of his crews and contractual aid, had addressed almost half of the service prompts to service, said the spokesman.
“At the moment, the street team is still working hard and all crews in the use of the whole city,” said the spokesman.
Over 16,000 comed customers in Aurora had influenced their power from the weekend towers, and the city's spokesman said on Monday that the company restored the service to 90% of the city's affected customers at that time.
In the Chicago region, more than 60,000 comed customers reported from the Chicago Tribune from power failures. The comed website gave on Monday that the service was restored to over 95% of those who lost power during the storms. The crews are expected to restore those that will still be operated without services until this afternoon.
rsmith@chicagotribune.com