Tornado leaves one dead in Illinois
Official says every building in town hit
ROCHELLE, Ill. – One person was killed and seven were injured in a tiny northern Illinois community after at least one large tornado touched down in the area, authorities said Thursday night.
One person was killed in the community of Fairdale, James Joseph with the Illinois Department of Emergency Management said.
Rockford Fire Department division chief Matthew Knott told ABC7-TV that seven people were injured. Knott said “every single” one of the approximately 50 structures in Fairdale has been damaged.
He said “most” have been flattened.
The National Weather Service confirmed on Twitter around 7 p.m. that a tornado was on the ground in nearby Rochelle and urged residents to seek shelter immediately.
Robin Biggs, an employee at the Super 8 motel in Rochelle, which is about 80 miles west of Chicago, said she took video of the storm, which she said “took everything out in its path.”
“I have lived here 18 years and I have never seen a tornado that big or stay on the ground that long,” she said. “What we have is a small one touching the ground and going right back up, but this just stayed down and went all the way across the horizon.”
About 9:30 p.m., the weather service said it could not confirm how many tornadoes struck the area but said one long-tracked storm moved across DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties, sporadically touching down and causing damage.
The system, packing hail and damaging winds, was headed east as storms rumbled through the Midwest and Plains during the region’s first widespread bout of severe weather this season.
The weather service said it had received multiple reports of tornadoes in Scott and Clinton counties in the far eastern part of the state. At least one tornado had touched down earlier Thursday evening in rural Donahue, about 15 miles north of Davenport. The weather service had no reports of injuries from those storms.
Minor injuries were reported Thursday in central Missouri when storms toppled trees, utility poles and billboards.
The National Weather Service’s “enhanced risk” area stretched from northeast Texas to Michigan, Wisconsin and across the upper Midwest. Forecasters say Philadelphia, Washington and other parts of the Atlantic coast could see the same weather patterns today, including Augusta, Georgia, where the Masters golf tournament is taking place through the weekend.