A personal account from Joe Crain, former meteorologist at WICS in Springfield.
A personal account from Pamela,
“When the tornadoes hit it was actually a very nice day. Sometime in early March, I remember gathering up my kids… we didn’t have a basement so went over to my mom and dad’s house, when we got to my dad’s house the weather started to get really bad and the power went out. The lightning was ferocious, you could hear it rattling the house”
“The scariest part was not knowing how my mom and my sister were because we had never actually had a tornado touch down in Springfield, like that. The clouds, when they rolled in, they were thick and really green and black and grey. You could see the rotation in the clouds. It was really very fascinating and scary at the same time… it was almost like it could form one any moment and set it down right on your house. Some trees were bending over, the power lines were swaying rain was just god awful.”
“As we started driving around there were trees down everywhere, fences in peoples yards, trash cans strung about, I saw a boat… it came from somebody’s house but it was upside down in the middle of the road. If you went over to where the actual tornadoes hit it was worse… there were windows shattered, glass everywhere, more fences down. Garages were badly damaged, roofs were very badly damaged, there were shingles everywhere. It’s hard to believe a whirl of wind can cause that much damage… when you see a tornado on TV it’s nothing like being there and seeing it in person, it’s very overwhelming.”
A personal account from Susan, a grocery store worker, at the time,
Photo: County Market on S 6th Street in Springfield, IL, formerly Jewel-Osco, where Susan used to work. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.
“I was working at Jewel Osco on 6th street (now Country Market) All a sudden it got very, very dark and the wind picked up really bad. Then the sirens started going off and I was upfront and I looked out the windows and it just looked like night time, it was dusk anyway but it was total black. When lightning started, we started seeing the funnel clouds and we ended up having to lock our doors because it was literally pulling our doors open. People would pull up and we would unlock the doors and let them in and then we had a big streak of lighting and then we [saw] the tornado go over the store. So we made everybody go to the back of the store and into the coolers. We pretty much [sat] down there, and you could hear it. It was loud. It tore up a piece of our roof and it knocked out our power totally It took us almost two weeks to get our store totally functional… we had to throw out a lot of product. All of the meat and dairy. My daughter worked at Chuck E Cheese and it did significant damage there. Much more than it did at my store. They were down for a significant amount of time and I think it even took off a part of their roof.”
“I was very concerned about my family because I had family on the north end, my daughter was working at Chuck E Cheese and there was no phone communication so I knew I was okay and when it was over we locked our store up and I just came home. The damage I [saw] between here and there [Jewel Osco] was pretty bad. By the time I got to the north end of Springfield, it wasn’t too bad at all.”
“ Southern View [thats where it hit] they were out [of power] for about two weeks. I would say there is a clear significant amount of damage there. It ran right across Clearlake and you could see where it literally cut the trees down”
A written account from Patty, a restaurant worker, at the time of the events,
“I was working at a restaurant right behind the village of Jerome in Springfield. I was stuck in the back doing inventory so I was essentially clueless we had inclement weather. My dad called and told me that a storm was coming that looked like it could produce a tornado in my direction. I started watching the weather and went out the back of the store which faces west. The sky had an eerie turquoise color to it and it was fairly still and quiet for the most part. After a while, the wind began to pick up and I saw the tornado! It was difficult to see the funnel as it was rain-wrapped at this point. The sirens began to blare so I went back inside and told the few customers in the store that we needed to take cover immediately as a tornadic storm was out west coming this way.
Once everyone was safe and huddled in the bathroom, I had enough time to prepare for a power outage and turn off my breakers and kitchen equipment. I was keeping a close eye on the storm. After I was finished and about to take cover with everyone else, I took a look toward the front of the store. We had large windows up there and I noticed how they were flexing outward. It almost looked like they were made of plastic wrap and not glass. I also saw all kinds of debris blowing around at this point. I took cover and a few moments later, I heard a loud hum like from a large engine. The power had just gone out. Then it sounded like someone threw a handful of rocks on the roof which was the hail hitting. My ears popped really bad as well. It really didn’t last that long at all. It was very quick but remains vivid in my memory even today.
When we submerged from the bathroom, I noticed all my drop ceiling tiles were lifted and twisted. I also had the ceiling collapse in one of my utility rooms. The customers left and unfortunately, some lost windows in their cars and cars were actually moved from where they were parked. We were fortunate and kept our windows in our store, but the store to the left and right of us lost theirs. The awning to my store had a large gash from debris, but other than that, that was all the damage we sustained. There was an a/c unit that had been lifted and slammed in the parking lot from a neighboring store.
While assessing the damage and calling my boss, I smelled natural gas, so I made my crew leave and left myself. There was so much debris covering and blocking the road, which normally took 10 minutes to get home, took well over an hour. We wound up staying closed for about a week until we could inventory and throw out perishable food and sanitize everything.”
Springfield, IL - Tornadoes of 2006 