By
Associated Press
Monday, Nov. 18, 2013
A tornado moves northeast Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013, two miles west of Flatville, Ill. (AP Photo/News-Gazette, Jessie Starkey)
WASHINGTON, Ill. (AP) - As a powerful tornado bore down on their
Illinois farmhouse, Curt Zehr's wife and adult son didn't have time to
do anything but scramble down the stairs into their basement.
Uninjured, the pair looked out moments later to find the house gone and
the sun out "right on top" of them, Zehr said. Their home, on the
outskirts of Washington, Ill., was swept up and scattered over hundreds
of yards by one of the dozens of tornadoes and intense thunderstorms
that swept across the Midwest on Sunday, leaving at least six people
dead and unleashing powerful winds that flattened entire neighborhoods,
flipped over cars and uprooted trees.
"They saw (the tornado) right there and got in the basement," said a
stunned Zehr, pointing to the farm field near the rubble that had been
his home.
PHOTOS: Deadly Tornadoes, Storms Hit Midwest
Early
Monday, Washington Mayor Gary Manier estimated that from 250 to 500
homes were either damaged or destroyed in the storm and that it wasn't
clear when residents would be allowed to return.
"Everybody's without power, but some people are without everything,"
Manier told reporters in the parking lot of a destroyed auto parts store
and near a row of flattened homes.
"How people survived is beyond me," he said.
The unusually powerful late-season wave of thunderstorms brought
damaging winds and tornadoes to 12 states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa,
Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia,
Pennsylvania and western New York.
Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief of the National Weather
Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the storms all
belonged to the same system and would be "moving rapidly to the east and
continue east overnight and into the morning."
Illinois was the hardest struck with at least six people killed and dozens more injured.
An elderly man and his sister were killed when a tornado hit their home
in the rural southern Illinois community of New Minden, coroner Mark
Styninger said. A third person died in Washington, while three others
perished in Massac County in the far southern part of the state, said
Patti Thompson of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. She did not
provide details.
Communications remained difficult and with many roads impassable it was
not clear if the injury and death tolls would rise on Monday. Ill. Gov.
Pat Quinn declared seven counties disaster areas.
Washington, a town of 16,000 about 140 miles southwest of Chicago,
appeared to have suffered the most severe damage. The tornado cut a path
about an eighth of a mile wide from one side of town to the other,
State Trooper Dustin Pierce said.
Across farm fields a little more than a mile from where Zehr's home was swept up, several blocks of homes were destroyed.
"The whole neighborhood's gone. The wall of my fireplace is all that is
left of my house," said Michael Perdun, speaking by cellphone.
The Illinois National Guard assisted with search and recovery operations
in Washington. The White House issued a statement saying President
Barack Obama had been briefed about the damage and was in touch with
federal, state and local officials. Gov. Quinn was scheduled to survey
affected areas Monday.
As law enforcement officers continued to search for victims and sized up
the cleanup and rebuilding job ahead, they kept everyone but residents
and emergency workers out. With power off and lines down in many areas,
natural gas lines leaking and trees and other debris blocking many
streets, an overnight curfew kept all but emergency vehicles off
pitch-black roads. The only lights visible across most of Washington on
Sunday night were red and blue flashes from police and fire truck
lights.
Pierce said there were reports of looting around town.
About 75 friends and neighbors helped Zehr to salvage his family's
belongings. He said he'd been at church when the tornado hit but that
his wife, Sue, and son were at home.
A friend, Keith Noe, said the Zehr family still felt fortunate.
"They both walked out of the basement and that's what counts," Noe said.
Across Washington, an auto parts store with several people inside was
reduced to a pile of bricks, metal and rebar; a battered car, its
windshield impaled by a piece of lumber, was flung alongside it.
"The employees were climbing out of this," Pierce said, gesturing to the
rubble behind him. None of them was seriously injured, he said.
At OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in nearby Peoria, spokeswoman Amy
Paul said 37 storm victims had been treated, including eight with
injuries ranging from broken bones to head injuries. Another hospital,
Methodist Medical Center in Peoria, treated more than a dozen, but
officials there said none of them were seriously injured.
About 90 minutes after the tornado destroyed homes in Washington, the
stormyweather darkened downtown Chicago. As the rain and high winds
slammed into the area, officials at Soldier Field evacuated the stands
and ordered the Bears and Baltimore Ravens off the field. Fans were
allowed back to their seats shortly after 2 p.m., and the game resumed
after about a two-hour delay.
Earlier, the Office of Emergency Management and Communications had
issued a warning to fans, urging them "to take extra precautions and ...
appropriate measures to ensure their personal safety."
Just how many tornadoes hit was unclear. Although about 80 reports of
tornadoes had come in as of Sunday night, the National Weather Service's
Bunting said the actual number will likely be in the 30 to 40 range. He
said that's because the same tornado often gets reported multiple
times.
Weather service meteorologist Matt Friedlein said such weather is rare
this late in the year, but that strong winds coupled with temperatures
in the 60s and 70s spawned Sunday's storms.
PHOTOS ON SKYE: Deadly Tornadoes and Storms Hit the Midwest
