"It's worse than the tornadoes that came through last spring," said Deanna Young, one of a trio of street workers who filled dump trucks with storm debris for disposal at the city's sewage treatment plant northwest of town.

Young said the mess from this storm was more widespread.

While a tornado creates a path of destruction, this was "all over town," she said. "The whole city. It's all the same."

"There were trees everywhere," Mount Pulaski resident Duane Blaum said as he checked Christmas decorations in his yard Tuesday. "I was just amazed. There wasn't hardly a yard in Mount Pulaski that there wasn't tree damage" ... including his.

Still, he said, "I lucked out. I was one of the lucky ones," despite having two electrical wires pulled from his house.

Nearby, in the front yard of his North Vine Street home, 82-year-old Earl Jackson raked and picked up storm debris to put roadside.

Some of the landscape was from a sweet gum tree he planted on the property more than 50 years ago, he said.

Jackson said he expects to have the tree pruned next spring.

"It's gonna be a long time before it starts to look decent again," he said.

Jackson said the storm damage was the worst since a 1978 ice storm that took out the top of a maple tree in his back yard, a tree he later removed.

Mount Pulaski was without power for several days overall after the storm. Surprisingly, homes there suffered little, if any, damage.

Tuesday afternoon, Lincoln street department workers were cleaning up Pekin Street and said they planned next to attend to North Logan Street.

County Emergency Management Agency director Dan Fulscher said late this morning that area storm cleanup manpower and equipment finished in Chestnut and Latham Tuesday and will concentrate on Mount Pulaski, Cornland and Lake Fork cleanup for the rest of this week.