Krysten Ballard of Mokena is only 7 years old. But she still recalls the television pictures of the killer tornado that ravaged northwestern Will County when she was 5.
“I think that it gave me a feeling that there could be a real one sometime,” said the Mokena Elementary School 2nd grader. “I was just thinking: If there was one, what would I do?”
That’s enough, she says, to make her take this week’s statewide Tornado Preparedness Week seriously.
The devastation of recent tornadoes in the southwestern suburbs and Will County-including the August 1990 tornado that spun through Plainfield, Crest Hill and Joliet and the March 1991 tornado that hit Lemont-has touched the lives of people all across the metropolitan area, especially in the southern suburbs.
For many, this is “tornado country,” “tornado alley,” and “the tornado track,” and making sure people are prepared for a sudden attack by a funnel-shaped twister from the sky takes on a special urgency.
Once tornadoes were associated with such states as Missouri and Kansas, which was given its claim to tornado fame in “The Wizard of Oz.” But over the last two decades, weather experts and educators say, the heart of the country’s tornado territory has shifted to the Cook County, Will County and northern Indiana area.
The area also has a long season of tornado risk, running from March to September or October.
“Tornadoes are the single most destructive phenomena that affect all of Illinois,” said Tom Zimmerman, who is in charge of disaster planning and analysis for the state’s Emergency Management Agency. “As long as we are at risk, we should be prepared.”
Zimmerman said his agency devised Tornado Preparedness Week-which it has sponsored in conjunction with the National Weather Service for the last two decades-to help schools, hospitals, businesses and individuals get away from conducting drills “out of rote” and begin thinking about the importance of being prepared.
Most recently, Zimmerman said, the agency has begun emphasizing the need for good information sources and notification procedures across the state.
This week it has been sending out information packets to legislators, local governments and the media. In addition, students in all Illinois primary and secondary schools participated in a tornado drill Tuesday between 10 and 10:30 a.m.
“The tornado drill of this past Tuesday is testimony to the fact that we do learn from past tornadoes,” he said. “This year our emphasis was on notifying people. Next year it will be something else.”
In addition to schoolchildren, Zimmerman said the agency encourages hospitals, nursing homes and private businesses as well as families and individuals to review safety procedures or to practice drills for tornadoes.
Preparation for tornadoes is not limited to a review of office evacuation maps and school drills, however.
Cliff Bender, an architect whose firm Healy, Snyder, Bender and Associates in Joliet has built several hundred buildings and schools in the Will County area, said that many of his clients are concerned about tornado safety-especially since the Plainfield disaster.
“I think there is an increased sensitivity,” said Bender, a Plainfield native who was in the school district’s administration building when it was leveled by the twister. “I think we are more aware.”
For elementary and high school students in Plainfield, tornado drills once were a time for getting out of class for a while to goof around.
But since the tornado, which took the lives of three people in the district’s school buildings, students say the drills are conducted with decorum and seriousness.
Students take to heart the warnings: Avoid rooms with glass or outside walls, go to a hallway or basement, and huddle low, covering your head with your arms.
Beth Madden, a senior at Plainfield High School who was a freshman when the tornado struck, said the first drill held at the school’s temporary building in Joliet after the tornado was an emotional moment for her class.
“People were crying. People were very scared,” she said. “I think everybody knew it had happened before and it could happen again.”
Many pupils at Plainfield’s Grand Prairie Elementary School, which also was heavily hit by the tornado, tell vivid stories of a town reduced to nasty confusion moments after the storm.
Sixth grader John Minski said he remembers returning to the site of a new home his family was building and discovering a mass of splintered wood and concrete.
In the streets were everything from toys to bed covers and garbage cans.
“I know now that if you’re in a tornado you should calm down because if not you could make it worse,” said John, 12. “I think people who were involved take it seriously because now they know the destruction of a tornado.”
