Tornado Rips Apart Tavern, Killing 8 Who Sought Refuge

Dust and soot lined Mary Paulak’s face in thick streaks Wednesday, but she didn’t notice as she wearily wandered through her decimated hometown.

When a tornado tore through this village of 1,000 people Tuesday evening, eight residents who had run to their favorite tavern for safety were crushed to death when the century-old building collapsed.

At least 10 people were injured so seriously that they had to be taken to hospitals. Businesses along the town’s two-block main street were destroyed, and the streets were covered ankle-deep with crumbled brick and shredded tree branches.

Many of those who died were Paulak’s friends. The last of the bodies were discovered late Wednesday, town officials said.

“The sky turned purple and then the air screamed,” said Paulak, 58, who was born and raised in this settlement about 90 miles southwest of Chicago. “It sounded like a woman shrieking with rage.”

The storm struck here too fast for many people to react. Even though it’s tornado season, residents said, the wind had remained relatively calm this year.

But the wind hammered the Midwest on Tuesday. Officials with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said they received reports of 51 tornadoes. Most were clustered in Illinois and Indiana, but some were spotted as far as Nebraska, Iowa and Oklahoma.

According to weather officials, the storm in Utica was rated an F-3, or “serious,” tornado -- one that has the ability to destroy roofs, tear walls off well-constructed houses, overturn trains and uproot most trees in a forest.

The tornado in Utica was estimated to be 200 yards wide, with wind that blew as fast as 206 mph.

It was a “devastating storm,” said Nathan Marsili, a meteorologist with the weather service. Such wind speeds are “not all that common, and this [tornado] is all that much worse because of where it happened to touch down -- in a populated area.”

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who toured Utica and several other storm-damaged communities Wednesday, declared four counties disaster areas and committed state funds for recovery efforts.

Officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency are expected to be in Utica today to examine the damage and to determine if the town qualifies for federal disaster relief.

Although many Utica residents said the severity and speed of the storm had caught them off-guard, they pointed out that tornados were not unusual in this part of the Midwest.

“Last year in Illinois, we broke the record with 120 tornadoes,” said Patti Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. “I hope this is not going to be another record-breaking year.”

As the tornado approached Tuesday, all anyone here wanted was shelter.

Many residents decided to head to their favorite Western tavern, the Milestone Restaurant and Lounge. Wayne Ball, 63, and Bev Wool, 67, left their homes at a trailer park and rushed to the bar, seeking a place to hide.

For years, they and others had come to dance the two-step inside this seemingly sturdy stone-and-brick building, and croon along with their favorite country-western ballads.

When the tornado siren went off, La Salle County Fire Chief Dave Edgecomb said, the patrons raced to the basement. Some couldn’t move quickly enough and were crushed when the brick and sandstone building collapsed under the tornado’s powerful wind.

Others, including Ball and Wool, were caught in the rubble after the storm pulled back the roof of the two-story building.

“When it came down, both stories just collapsed into the basement,” Thompson said.

Those who died were found in various parts of the bar; they ranged from the 18-year-old son of an employee to an 81-year-old who had lived nearby.

Richard Little told Associated Press that he recalled running to the bar’s basement and, moments later, was sitting next to a freezer surrounded by fallen wood beams. An elderly man crouched next to him.

“You could hear kids screaming and adults screaming to let us know where they were buried,” said Little, a 37-year-old truck driver who was hospitalized with a sore shoulder, ribs and back.

Several people were pulled from the wreckage, including Little and three children.

Everywhere Utica residents looked Wednesday, there was destruction. The growl of power generators and chain saws and the smell of wet dust and burned metal filled the air. Truck bed liners and wooden window frames draped mangled tree trunks. Chunks of wood had pierced shingle roofs like needles sliding through fabric.

“See that roof? The one in my driveway? That’s the guy’s from up the street,” Connie Nordie said.

Yet some delicate objects had managed to survive the wind’s wrath.

One house had its back walls peeled completely away -- but a small cluster of cheerful orange tulips planted next to the front porch was thriving. The red brick walls of Daffy’s Tavern had partially collapsed into a pile of dust -- yet a string of Christmas lights hanging across the shattered roof and gaping walls had lost only three bulbs.

“When I came down here on Tuesday, all I could see was the chaos,” Paulak said. “All I could think about was my daughter, Bonnie.”

Bonnie Lucas, a 28-year-old emergency medical technician, had called Paulak just before the storm broke and the power went out. When the danger had passed, Paulak drove toward her daughter’s house until the debris blocked her way. She panicked at the sight of the damage, running and stumbling across the littered ground, screaming out Lucas’ name.

Neighbors told Paulak that Lucas wasn’t home, that she had already gone to help amid the collapsed buildings downtown. Paulak headed that way, finding her safe.

Paulak’s beauty salon on the tiny main street was boarded up Wednesday, the windows broken. But she considered herself lucky: Utica’s only bank had no roof, while the local bait-and-tackle shop had no walls.

“Most of the merchandise we can save,” shop owner Jim Collins, 47, said as he and friends hauled out mud-covered soda machines and shredded boxes of fishing gear. “But the building’s got to go. I just thank God we’re alive.”

Staff writer Lynn Marshall in Seattle contributed to this report.