WAPELLA — On May 15, 1968, Tony Long was about 5 years old, growing up in Wapella and about to eat a homemade plate of beef and noodles with chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
His 3-year-old brother was with him, along with five neighbor kids who had ventured over, concerned about an approaching storm. It was around 5 p.m. and storm clouds had been gathering for the better part of an hour.
“The lights went out,” said Long. “We lost power.”
His mom headed for the back door to assess the severity of the storm and Tony trailed behind.
“We stepped out into the first stages of bizarre tornado wind,” he said. “The treetops were bending and swaying from the pressure of strong gusts, but they weren’t all bending and swaying in the same direction. They’d twist and swirl one way, then the other, then a third direction. This wind broke the rules.”
Tony and his family were in the crosshairs of one of the most violent tornadoes in Central Illinois history.
The line of severe storms produced six tornadoes from Mason County to Farmer City, killing two people near Farmer City and two in Wapella, about 30 miles north of Decatur. Another 56 people were injured and damage estimates in Illinois topped $10 million, or more than $72.7 million in today’s dollars. Every building in Wapella was damaged, and several were destroyed.
“My grandmother, Calla Green Wickenhauser, was killed when the top of the elevator landed on their roof,” said Cindy Saylors, of Clinton. “I remember pieces of that day vividly, even though I was very young.”
Also killed were Bessie Flaherty, 82, who was at the Auction House Restaurant in Wapella that was flattened by the storm and Lawrence Wendell, 67, and his wife, Hazel, 65, who lived about 6.5 miles southwest of Farmer City. They were killed when their trailer flipped over and fell back on them.
Long said he remembers looking at the sky as the storm approached.
“A massive black cloud-structure churned angrily,” he said. “To me, it looked like a monster.”
The family, along with the neighbor kids, huddled together in a cellar.
“An eerie roar filled our ears and seemed to surround us,” Long remembered. “A pair of immense funnel clouds had taken shape and begun a slow, malicious west-to-east trek across the landscape. Glass in the windows of the house upstairs shattered as panes were sucked outward by a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure. Then, small bangs and crashes began sounding above our heads.”
A tree fell and crashed into the house, rupturing a propane pipe that passed through the cellar.
“Mom had no choice,” Long said. “She had to get us out of there.”
But a porch damaged by the storm had barricaded the cellar door shut. With help from the kids, the door was finally forced open and the group escaped to a neighbor’s house via a Volkswagon Beetle that had to venture through a rising creek.
There were seven people in that little Beetle, including six children.
“Mom said she had always heard that Volkswagons were water-tight and could float and she was determined to find out, because she wasn’t turning back,” said Long. “She floored it and plowed through the swollen creek and found safety at a neighbor’s house.”
Larry Buss of Clinton had just returned to his Wapella home from baseball practice when the twister hit.
“It sounded like a train, as many people say,” he said. “My mother and sister headed to the basement after we saw items flying by the picture window in our living room. It reminded me of the scene from the Wizard of Oz as Dorothy’s house is flying through the air.”
Buss heard someone screaming and against his mother’s wishes, went to investigate. “I opened the door to the garage and looked to the side door and saw my dad through the window yelling,” he said. “The suction would not let him open the door.”
Eventually the door popped open and his father made it inside.
“I had never seen anyone that terrified in my life,” Buss said. “This was a man who was at Normandy and in the Battle of the Bulge. He later told me this was the scariest situation he could remember.”
Just a few weeks prior to the storm, Kent Harris had taken over as fire chief in Wapella. He had plans to celebrate his wedding anniversary with his family, said his daughter, Jackie Harris Slayback.
“When it hit, it turned green and got eerily quiet and then all of a sudden it was like a freight train coming through,” she said. “He always talked about how amazing people from the surrounding area responded to requests for aid.”
Close to 10 inches of rain fell in Central Illinois during the storm, according to the National Weather Service in Lincoln. Other towns, including Waynesville, DeWitt and Farmer City, also reported damage from the storms.
“It changed Wapella forever,” said Bill Stewart, who had a farmhouse destroyed in the storm. “I guess looking back, it could have been a lot worse. But at the time, we were all pretty devastated.”
by Kevin Barlow (2018, May 15) Herald & Review
