Crime & Safety

Area May Be 'Overdue' For Another Tornado, Meteorologist Says

Fox TV's Amy Freeze says people need to remember how devastating tornadoes can be.

The good news, according to Fox Chicago News meteorologist Amy Freeze, is the Chicago area hasn't seen a tornado the likes of the one that struck Plainfield for more than 20 years.

The bad is news is we're probably overdue, she said, talking to an audience gathered at Plainfield Village Hall Friday morning about the deadly Aug. 28, 1990, tornado. Statistics show that a tornado in the F3- to F4-range typically occurs every nine years or so, she said.

"We have an entire generation that has never seen what can happen with an F4 or F5 tornado," she said. "We have to remember it's possible and we have to have a plan."

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Radar has greatly improved in the 20 years since the Plainfield tornado; it's now sophisticated enough to get an almost 3-D vision of the wind and the type of precipitation it contains, Freeze said. And there are far more trained weather spotters who go out during storms to do nothing but get a handle on what a storm's doing so they can call in an immediate report if a tornado is spotted, she said.

The funny thing about tornados, though, is they rarely look like the funnel we associate with "The Wizard of Oz," Freeze said. Instead, they're more "wedge-like," and in the case of the Plainfield tornado, they can come wrapped in a wall of hail and rain.

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That means even the best-trained meteorologist or spotter does not know with 100 percent certainty how a storm will evolve or even if a tornado has been generated, she said. People need to be responsible for their own safety, and not wait for sirens or notices on TV before taking shelter when the weather turns bad, she said.

Tornadoes also differ depending on the time of year, Freeze said. The one that crossed through Plainfield, leaving 29 people dead and dozens of buildings and homes leveled or badly damaged, was the only known F5 tornado to strike in the month of August. It was fueled by a combination of factors, including a very high dew point, hot temperatures and several storms coming together, she said.

By comparison, the area's second worst tornado — an F4 in Oak Lawn — occurred in April 1967. Typically in the spring, clashing warm and cold fronts generate squall storms that spin out twisters, she said.

Another interesting factor in the Plainfield tornado is the height of the storm clouds. A typical severe storm will go anywhere between 30,000 and 40,000 feet into the air; the Plainfield storm clouds went up 65,000 feet, Freeze said. The maximum recorded is 75,000 feet, she said.

The wind in an F5 storm is anywhere from 200 to 300 mph, she said. Knowing that, it's hard to believe more people weren't killed in the Plainfield storm or other severe tornadoes, she said.

"I've covered hurricanes with winds of 90 miles per hour. You can hardly stand up," Freeze said. "I can't imagine winds of 300 miles per hour."

Freeze did a special televised account of the tornado, which aired on Fox Thursday night. It featured current and former town residents, including retired Plainfield High School Principal and former Plainfield Mayor James Waldorf and resident Sue Wier.

Wier told of watching the storm, and worrying that her new car might get damaged, she said.

"My biggest thought was that the hail is hitting my car," she said. "Five minutes later, I had no car."

According to a show of hands, about 60 percent of Freeze's audience lived in Plainfield during the 1990 tornado. Pat and Peggy Boris, then 25 and 21, were two of them.

Both had been working at Plainfield Molding at the time of the storm and got off of work shortly after the storm had moved through, they said. They weren't married at the time, and Pat was living in the Whispering Creek subdivision. He remembers driving through the Village Green area, just a block off downtown Lockport Street, and seeing "downed power lines sparking in the street."

"I didn't realize the effect of it all," he said, referring to the extensive damage just a few more blocks over, where the high school and many homes had been destroyed.

Judy Watson, who was working at the Plainfield Fire Department, said her late husband — the village's ambulance chief — came upon the first of the fatalities to be found that day. The woman had been thrown from her car and was lying in a ditch, she said.

Ironically, Watson had a lifelong fear of tornadoes that came from her father, who witnessed a tornado in the 1930s that was so strong that it crossed three state lines. She said she forced herself to overcome that fear by becoming a weather spotter, only to live through a tornado herself.

The morning presentation was one of two Freeze gave Friday. The second was to a group gathered at the Plainfield Public Library.


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