More than 70 homes in northwest Oak Park were without power last Thursday after turbulent weather caused a massive tree limb to fall onto electrical wires behind a residence in the 1000 block of Division Street around 5:30 a.m.
The tree limb, which measured at least 50 feet in length, damaged the front roof of Mariusz and Margaret Martenka’s house and penetrated a window, and damaged the roof of an adjacent garage behind a home on the 900 block of Marion Street.
The day started out with a tremendous bang for the Martenka family last Thursday. Maruisz Martenka was already up around 5:30 a.m. when he said he saw a bright flash of lightning, then heard “a big bang, like an explosion.”
“The tree branch came in through the living room window,” he said. Everyone else was soon up as well.
“It was like, ‘Jump!'” said Margaret Martenka.
With no power for television or phones, the Martenkas–including daughters Jennifer and Katherine–spent much of the day outside, watching a crew slowly remove the heavy limb and smaller branches off their roof and power lines just to the west of their home. Others in a one-by-four-block area spent much of the evening outside as well, waiting for electrical power to be restored.
Commonwealth Edison spokeswoman Arlana Johnson said Friday that power was restored to all affected customers by shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday.
The girls went to work with their mother, while their father handled business with responding police and fire officials, public works inspectors, and ComEd. Martenka only managed to get in an hour or so at work Thursday, but at least could get his car out to go to work.
Mark Knickelbein, who lives at 900 Marion Street, didn’t hear the thunder or the tree limb cracking off. His first clue was when he walked through his backyard to his garage and saw what appeared to be a mid-sized tree lying across his garage. In fact, two trees had lost branches that morning, and both landed on his garage.
“At first I thought I was going to be able to get my car out,” Knickelbein said. That was until he got into the garage and spied the six-foot branch protruding down through the roof between the overhead door and his cars. “I missed most of two days of work,” said Knickelbein, who called the experience more of an inconvenience than anything else.
While power was restored late Thursday, workers were still hard at work cutting the main branch into sections and removing them just after noon last Friday.
