Streator Tornado

Streator experienced an F2 tornado Saturday night. Fortunately we were out of town. We started receiving phone calls and texts during the whole ordeal. We were up pretty late that night trying to get information. The most difficult news was hearing that our friends Megan and Jeremy had their garage and the back of their house ripped off...


Although the damage was extensive, there were no deaths or serious injuries--for that we were all thankful! It was very interesting getting back into town Sunday afternoon. The whole north side of town was untouched. The damage was very isolated. Our block went for a few hours without power (nothing compared to people who lost everything!) When we got back into town, many of the roads were blocked off. We couldn't get close to any of the "disaster areas". These are a few pics I snapped as we drove by the roads that were open:

My school (Oakland Park) was directly in the path of the tornado. Thankfully the building sustained very minor damage--just A LOT of debris. These pictures are the view out of my classroom window, taken after 3 full days of clean-up:

This is a house directly across from my school:

Our school had many families affected, some who lost everything.

This is a shot of Megan and Jeremy's garage that attaches to their house:

Here is a short video clip featured on WGN News. It shows the Devera house from an aerial view (during the phone interview). Here are some more pictures from the Streator Times.

This was very much a wake-up call! A tornado is something I always thought "would never happen to me." Although it didn't directly affect our house, it has been very humbling to see how it has affected people that we love. I have been able to use this experience to learn and grow:

• I will always take tornado warnings seriously and seek shelter. I will teach my kids what to do in an emergency situation and I will have an emergency kit in my basement with water, non-perishable food, and first aid supplies.
• Marc and I used this opportunity to teach Sadie what a tornado is. I had to show her pictures because in her mind "tormatoes" were people. (Probably because we sometimes refer to Kinnick as a tornado! She asked me "Is Kinnick only a messin' up the house tormato and not a ripping down the house tormato?") After our brief science lesson, Sadie was able to give her definition of a tornado: "A really, really, really, REALLY big turnin' cloud that walks down roads. When it gets tired of walking, it stops and trashes people's houses."
• I was able to reflect on and talk to Sadie about why God allows things like this to happen... I keep coming back to the unshakable truth that He is in control and that I only need to trust Him daily. I also know that he provides us opportunities to be his hands and feet.
• I was also able to teach Sadie that God gifts us each differently and teaches us to do what we are able. She was struggling with the fact that she couldn't go help clean up Emma & Eddie's house, but she was excited to pick out some toys and books to share with them while they stayed at a hotel.
• I'm very grateful... Sadie said today during breakfast, "Mom, I'm glad the tormato didn't see our house or Joe & Shirley's house when it was walking."

My favorite part of this whole experience was seeing my daughter's faith lived out. When we first heard about the tornado we gave her a brief explanation and then we prayed for our friends in Streator. We put her to bed and sometime later Aunt Nee Nee went into her room to get something and heard Sadie praying. She was listing all of her friends and asking God to keep them safe from the "tormato".