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Wednesday, April 21, 2004 |
April tornadoes
News of the tornado
that hit Utica, Illinois, on Tuesday night made me think about the
deadly twisters (see, I still have some newspaper guy in me) that hit
northern Illinois on April 21, 1967. I remember the day because Mom
picked me up at school that day and we had to get off the road when an
extremely intense thunderstorm swept through; she pulled off Exchange
Street into an abandoned farm yard in what is now a commercial area in
University Park. It was only about 4 in the afternoon, but the sky was
nearly black and it rained so hard for about five or ten minutes that
you couldn't see to drive. As it turned out, storms were sweeping the
entire region. At 4:30, a twister hit a high school in Belvedere,
just outside Rockford, killed 24 and injured 400. About 45 minutes
later, another tornado struck Oak Lawn and nearby suburbs, about 20 miles north of us,
killing 33 and injuring 500.
10:41:00 AM 
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© Copyright 2004 Dan Brekke.
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