I remember that day as clear as if I was living it today. I was 6 at the time and completely fascinated by the destruction that storms could do. From that day to now I have wanted to be a meteorologist and I'm still as fascinated by severe weather as I was that April night.

Posted by shenbopang on April 18, 2006 at 9:51 PM

I was living in Savoy at that time. I worked in the office at the new Meijer store that day and I called channel 3 newsroom in the afternoon from my office to see if there were any tornado watches posted. I remember going out at lunch and it was hot and gray and windy, seemed like twister weather to me. That evening, at home in my apartment on Curtis Road in Savoy, my husband wanted to go out that night. I was watching the news when they came on and said there was a tornado on I-72 in Springfield. I said to my husband "We can't go out, there's a tornado in Springfield!" My husband was exasperated with me as I made him stay on the couch with me and wouldn't let him change the channel from WCIA - 3. Later, they came on and said "tornado in Decatur." I looked over to my husband, he still seemed unimpressed. A little later, they came on again and said "tornado in Monticello." The stress in Judy Frasier's voice was high. This time when I looked over at my husband, he nervously quipped "We better get our shoes on!" That's all I needed to hear. I ran to the phone and called the store director in charge at Meijer. He was new in town from Michigan and I gave him the info I had and told him to get everybody out of the front of the store, away from the glass. Then, I not only got my shoes, I ripped the pillows and blanket off the bed and headed for the sairwell in the lobby of the apartment building. Meanwhile, my husband was standing on our deck, which faced the southwest. I screamed "get downstairs with me!" He screamed back "No, I want to see it!" I was standing in the lobby, wringing my hands as I heard the sirens go off. Just then, the neighbors from across the hall drove up from being out and could see me through the glass in the front door of the apartment building. It was a man and his wife with their dog.

The man asked me "What's going on?" I told him there was a tornado on the way. Just then, my husband ran down the stairs yelling at us "Get back, Get back" waving his hands towards the back of the stairs. I don't think his feet even touched the steps. We all crouched down behind the stairwell, kind of underneath, and I could hear loud whistling wind and it seemed as though the walls of the building were moving and the windows were buckling under pressure. Then, it was all over. My husband saw the tornado in the lightning, lifting up from the housing subdivision, Arbour Meadows I think, and then "hanging like a big bowl".

We walked out into the parking lot and the stars were out, but to the east, the lightning never ceased. We went back upstairs with our neighbors to their apartment and walked out onto their deck that looked east towards Urbana. In the lightning, we could see the tornado snaking down out of the sky and I cried out "It must be hitting Urbana!" The next morning, we drove to Urbana to survey the damage. We parked our car and started walking. on McHenry street, we saw one house that looked like the tornado sat right on it, but the other houses on either side were untouched. As we stood there, the woman who lived in the house that was demolished was trying to get back in and she called out to her friend that was with her "Look, I found my dishes, they are still here!" and her friend said "I don't think you should go in!"

The street was streaked with mud and the air smelled like mud. We walked towards the IGA on Philo Road because we heard that it had been hit. We met another group of people surveying damage. One of the men said excitedly, "I can't wait to see if the IGA is still there" Just then, I looked ahead and saw the downed power lines on Philo and felt unsafe and like I should be helping instead of looking around. We left the area and went home. That night, we were awoken by a loud thunderstorm and I remember waking up panicked and I ran into my bathtub and my husband ran after me and was holding me trying to reaasure me that it was just a thunderstorm that time. All I could think of was the damage I witnessed that morning and how close I came to having the same thing happen to me, having the roof over my head blown away into the night. I'll never forget it, and I can still feel the anxiety I felt ten years ago and I sit here and write this.

Deborah Schwaab debschwaab@yahoo.com

Posted by debschwaab on April 24, 2006 at 9:55 AM

I was at home in my apartment near Jerry's IGA eating dinner. When it became clear that the storm was going to pass pretty close to Urbana, I decided to go to my classroom at Urbana High School to watch the storm on doppler radar online. (That was in the dark ages before I had internet access at home.) Arriving at UHS, I found that a jazz band performance was in progress in the cafeteria. By then the tornado sirens were going off, but no one could hear them over the concert, so I went in and found Gene Amberg so that he could stop the concert and get everyone to take shelter in the designated hallway.

We probably waited about half an hour in the hallway until some sort of all-clear was sounded or announced. Some of the students who went into the band room had opened the outside door (on the south side of UHS, facing the track) and reported seeing the silhouette of the tornado against the lightening as it passed over southern Urbana.

I then hurried home, and other than some branches down on the streets it wasn't too hard to get home since I lived about half a block north of where the tornado had actually gone. But then I realized that the electricity was out and my flashlight was at school, so I went back to UHS to get it and again returned home. By then the emergency vehicles were beginning to arrive in large numbers, although the residential streets from the west were not yet blocked off. I didn't venture out into the neighborhood that night, knowing that downed power lines and other hazards would be difficult to see in the dark. Sometime later in the evening, I went to the staging area in the Sunnycrest parking lot and rode an MTD bus to the shelter that had been set up downtown. After checking on the families I knew in Eagle Ridge and other neighborhoods, I rode a bus back to Sunnycrest and returned to my apartment. What I remember most clearly overnight was how dark and quiet it was (with no electricity or traffic), other than the sound of the Diesel engines of many, many fire trucks.

The next morning the weather was completely clear and sunny, and I started walking around the neighborhood, which by then had been sealed off to non-residents. Just as people always report, there were strange, incongruous scenes everywhere. Although no damaged structures were yet visible in my block (2000 South), sheets of plywood had blown halfway up the block and a couple 2x6 rafters were standing in one yard like javelins. Walking down Philo past the fire station and onto Mumford, I saw a car turned perpendicular to the street resting against a tree between the sidewalk and the street, but right beside it was an upright cardboard box of encyclopedias; they were in order and looked undisturbed other than the fact they were sitting in the street. Beyond that first impression, there were too many things to remember clearly walking by all the damaged houses. Later in the weekend, I remember a string of trucks driving up the street carrying damaged, mud-plastered cars. But everything else has kind of blurred together in the last ten years.

Ironically, growing up in Kansas never brought me as close to a tornado as that night in Urbana (although I do regret that, had I not gone to UHS during the storm, I literally could have watched the tornado pass Jerry's IGA from my bedroom window, much as that violates all the tornado safety rules). I do remember that when there was a mid-afternoon tornado about a month later (near the I-57/I-74 junction), students were far more responsive than during previous tornado drills.

Posted by hintonmi on April 30, 2006 at 7:19 PM

I was home on that day, about a mile and a half east of Urbana on Washington Street. Back then, I was around 5 or so and terrified of tornadoes, but loved weather. I remember listening to Wcia when they came on with a frantic tone saying a tornado was heading for Urbana. My father had us run to the basement with a ESDA scanner and we basically waited. A little while later, someone on the scanner craked over the radio saying there was one on Route 130 and Washington Street. Being only 2 miles away, my dad ran upstairs to check it out. He watched for a few seconds, and then there was a flash of lighting and he saw it...right over the neighbors house. I think he only hit the ground 3 times on the way back to the basement. On his way back, he looked out the back door to the south and saw the "big one". I don't think he even hit the stairs on the way down either. I remember my ears popping as the funnel went over our house. Being that we have relatives living in Ogden, my father immediatly called my uncle when the funnel passed over. My uncle replied back on the phone..."i know! it's here!" then the line went dead. We didn't know what happened to them until the next day. The tornado had done some roof damage and siding damage, totaling to about $8,000...while his neighbors house was leveled to the ground. This experience with the power of what tornadoes is what sparked my interest in tornadoes. Right now, I am a storm chaser on the Tornado Research Team of Illinois (TRTI). That has definatly been a lot of fun, and I plan to become a meteorologist in the future!

Posted by tornadochaser on May 31, 2007 at 4:48 PM