Downers Grove Storm Victim 'Felt The Whole House Shake'

DOWNERS GROVE, IL — When Trish Axelson's 11-year-old son, Sam, woke her Sunday to tell her about the tornado warning he saw on television, she initially urged him to let her sleep. "We're in Downers Grove; we'll be fine. This isn't Plainfield," she told him. The last thing the single mom of two expected was for the night's damaging storms to leave her and her boys without a home.

“No, you don’t understand. It’s heading toward Woodridge. We have to go downstairs," Sam urged. With that, Axelson got out of bed and rushed downstairs with Sam and her other son, Evan, 14, to take shelter in the lower level's bathroom.

Roughly 10 minutes later, Axelson says, she "felt the whole house shake like an earthquake was happening."

The moments after that are still a blur for Axelson. For over an hour, the family huddled in their bathroom, opening the door at one point to find rain pouring into the home's basement level from two stories up.

When they finally went back upstairs, "everything was soaked" and the "whole roof" had been ripped from over the home's bedrooms. “There’s nothing above you, just sky," Axelson said. Her kitchen cabinets had been tugged from the ceiling.

Axelson quickly pulled her most beloved photos of Evan and Sam from the walls, shoved some clothes into plastic bags and called her boyfriend to pick them up. When he arrived, the trio had to lug their belongings for a block to meet him because toppled trees were blocking the road and driveway.

“I couldn’t sleep for at least 24 hours," Axelson told Patch. On Monday, she returned to the home to find the basement ceiling had collapsed.

"I don’t think I understood [the extent of the damage] until the next day, when we came back in the daytime.”

Since the storm, the family has been staying with Axelson's boyfriend, but they are working with insurance representatives to find alternative lodging in a rental home or hotel. For how long, Axelson doesn't know. "I don't really have a timeframe yet," she said.

“I can’t think right now," Axelson told Patch. "We’re living out of garbage bags and Target bags, basically.”

Demolition begins on Axelson's home Thursday. She said she'll likely spend all of Wednesday sorting through the remnants of her home, taking photos and making a list of its contents.

“Probably most of my house is going to be gutted from water damage," Axelson told Patch.“It seems surreal to look at your house, and it’s trashed, but it was fine [earlier] Sunday.”

Axelson said she has not been back to her job this week. Her employers have been pretty understanding, though. Ironically enough, she works for an insurance company relocating victims of tornadoes, fires and other disasters.

In the midst of her family's own tragedy, Axelson said she still feels "pretty lucky compared to what some others have gone through.”

“Had my son not woke me up and gotten me and his brother downstairs, I don’t know what would have happened,” she said.

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