Mt. Vernon Residents Pick-up After Storm
By: Carly O'Keefe

MT. VERNON, IL --Saturday, John Richey trudged through tree limbs and debris scattered all over his yard.
"There's damage just about everywhere you look," said Richey.
Richey was working when Friday's storm hit. After work he discovered six trees in his yard were uprooted, seven were cracked in two.
"I thought, I'd probably have a tree or two down, I can deal with that," said Richey. "I never dreamed this would be what I'd come home to."
Two of Richey's trees crushed his storage shed, one landed on his jeep, another crashed into the corner of his roof.
"There's quite a bit of damage to my walnut tree. It's laying on top of my garden," said Richey. "It's pretty much a mess, I was just getting red tomatoes."
Gerald Penrod watched as the wind lifted and carried his carport away.
"It just picked the whole thing up like an umbrella and crashed it down into the building," said Penrod.
The carport crashed through the roof of Penrod's storage shed. Incredibly, the van parked inside the carport during the storm didn't get a scratch.
"I don't know what they measured the wind at, but you can see it's done a lot of damage to Mt. Vernon," said Penrod.
Friends from his church helped Richard Adams begin the daunting task of cleaning up after the storm.
"It is a mess," said Adams.
A maple tree that has stood in his yard since before he moved in 40-years ago was uprooted.
"Trees, God put ‘em there, I guess he can take ‘em away if he wants to," said Adams.
Unfortunately the job of cleaning up falls on the homeowner.
"You work hard to keep your yard looking good for yourself and your neighborhood, and you turn and look at this," said Adams gesturing to the fallen tree in his yard. "And you think, how long will it take to get it back looking like it was?"