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POLITICS
You Aren’t Safe From This Storm
And hiding in your basement won’t save you
On Nov. 17, 2013, an EF4 tornado did more than a billion bucks worth of damage to my central Illinois community. Washington took the brunt of it, but East Peoria and Pekin also had plenty of damage.
In those days, I was the editor of my city’s then-daily newspaper. My main photographer was in Chicago for the weekend and I couldn’t reach our part-timer because phone service was wonky.
So I sent my husband, who is a pretty good photographer but not a trained journalist, to take pictures.
We knew the subdivision that was hit hardest very well. A friend of mine and her young daughter lived there. They had to be pulled from the debris, and if they had not dived under the basement stairs at the last minute, it’s doubtful they’d have survived.
Houses not far from mine sustained serious damage, but my property was unscathed. Still, I am far less blasé about storm warnings now than I had been — and thankful that at least for now, we still have a robust system to protect us, NOAA’s early warning system. (I picked up the…
