Replanting the suburbs after storm

Standing along Lonnquist Boulevard in Mount Prospect, a gaggle of 8-year-old boys from St. Raymond School await their chance to plant either a ginkgo or a London planetree.

An August thunderstorm had thrashed the area, ripping down more than a thousand mature trees in the Northwest suburbs like the two these Cub Scouts were trying to replace with saplings.

Although told several times by Cub Scout mothers that this wasn't a competition, the boys had other ideas.

"Dig like a maniac!" yelled Mount Prospect's Charlie Siefke, 8.

"Dig! Dig! Dig!" screamed Alex Guerra, 8, also of Mount Prospect.

More than 300 village-owned parkway trees either were uprooted or damaged beyond repair.

Des Plaines also reported devastating destruction, with the city estimating shortly after the storm that more than 600 parkway trees were felled.

These estimates only account for village-owned trees along streets. Resident-owned trees were not included since the suburbs haven't made a count.

At last week's Scout event in Mount Prospect, the boys split into two groups for each tree on a median near Na-Wa-Ta Avenue.

Mount Prospect Public Works Forestry Division worker Michael Fellow began by teasing his six boys, who were waiting quietly around a young ginkgo on its side.

"No need to push and shove," Fellow chided the little boys, who stared wide-eyed at him seemingly confused with his joke. He tried again to get the boys going: "Now, let's go to town!"

Cub Scout Ryan Parks made one request of Fellow: "Don't pressure us, please."

While Mount Prospect and Des Plaines bore much of the brunt of the storm, other nearby towns lost fewer parkway.

Elk Grove Village lost 175 trees, which will cost the village about $87,500 to replace. In Arlington Heights, the village loss was about 75 trees, with an estimated replacement cost of about $22,500.

Other nearby suburbs were far luckier.

Palatine lost 15 trees, for example, while Rolling Meadows lost eight trees, Barrington one tree and Wheeling lost none.

As Fellow led a group trying to plant a ginkgo, a few feet away Mount Prospect Forestry Division Worker Dave Hull headed up a group digging a hole for a London planetree.

"We're not even halfway there as far as we have to go," Hull said to the boys, who were taking turns with shovels.

The boys were present because they wanted to help restore trees that were killed by the storm, which ripped through this area Aug. 23.

"We were sad that all trees were cut down, so we called to see if we could help replace the trees," said Cub Scout den mother Diane Parks from Mount Prospect.

The kind of storm that struck in August is not uncommon in mid- to late summer, said Stephen Rodriguez, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in Romeoville.

It was what's called a mesoscale convective system, which is basically a cluster of severe thunderstorms, he said.

Winds whipped through at 80 to 100 mph, downing power lines, smashing windows and snapping off tree limbs.

For meteorologists, the storm system wasn't particularly interesting, but its path cut through one of the most highly populated areas, so it caused far more destruction, he said.

"The amount of damage was widespread," Rodriquez said. "A lot more people were affected."

And now, Cub Scouts are helping repair the damage.

With a round, deep hole dug, the London planetree was ready to be planted, while the ginkgo was still sitting on the median.

"They are putting in their tree," warned Brendan McGovern, 8, eyeing the competition between the two teams. That prompted 8-year-old John Kelleher to ask: "Can we go on the other side?"

Forestry employee Hull tells the boys that the metal piping around the root ball must be cut as he snips it off, but that the burlap around the root ball can stay because it will degrade in the ground.

"Please don't hurt yourself," said Noah Gross, 8, of Mount Prospect to Hull. "Don't cut your fingers."

The planetree's planting elicited a few cries of "We won!" while the other boys finished planting the ginkgo about 10 minutes later.

Five-year-old Connor Parks, who tagged along with his brother, Ryan, 8, looked at the newly planted 2.5-inch diameter trees that were dwarfed by more mature ones nearby that survived the storm.

"It'll take a long time for our trees to grow," Connor said. "Fifty years or maybe 20 or maybe even 90 years."

Tree loss

Suburbs reported hundreds of trees felled by the storm in August. Here's a sampling of losses in some Northwest suburbs.

• Arlington Heights 75

• Barrington: 1

• Des Plaines: More than 600

• Elk Grove Village: 175

• Mount Prospect: More than 300

• Palatine: 15

• Rolling Meadows: 8

• Wheeling: None

Source: Forestry divisions