Storm victims face extensive cleanup

Tornado damage shown Friday morning in the south part of Streator.

Jeff Schultz and other family members were picking up branches Friday morning in South Streator after a tornado impacted northwestern Livingston County just a day earlier.

“I watched it come across the field,” Schultz recalled. “I was standing on my back deck but it got about 250 yards out and I headed to the basement.”

Schultz emerged from the basement and continued filming the massive twister moving across the road from his house.

“It was a good size,” he said.

Schultz’s mother, who lives next door, lost several trees.

“The garage took a little hit but it’s not demolished like across the street over there.”

Justin Coon arrived at a home his family owns right after the storm hit. A woman rents it from them.

“She had a gash and her daughter is disabled. We helped her get her out and clean a path for the firefighters.”

The kitchen walls are all that remain of the home as everything else was scattered throughout the area.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad honestly,” noted Coon.

The tornado which impacted Streator was believed to have dropped down around Long Point, traveling north of Ancona and coming across by Carriage Lane Estates which was hard hit. It then continued to Airport Road causing more extensive damage.

A man was reportedly pulled from rubble and hospitalized but later released.

Another tornado was spotted Thursday evening east of Dwight in the northeastern part of the county. Janice Earing caught the tornado on camera around Campus and it was seen near Reddick.

Several tornadoes occurred in northern and Central Illinois along with northwestern Indiana starting in the late afternoon Thursday. Notable damage occurred at Streator and two Indiana towns.

Damage surveys are being conducted by the National Weather Service to determine the number of tornadoes that occurred and the track and intensity of each.  

Vehicles are covered in debris from a tornado Thursday evening in Streator.