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Utica is a small village nestled on
the Illinois River. Two major interstates provide easy
access to the quaint, quiet community.
The
river, state parks and historic Illinois & Michigan Canal
Trail are attractions that draw tourists from all over to
the Illinois Valley. For Utica, population 1,000, tourism is
its biggest industry.
As with
many small communities, Utica is one where people greet each
other on the street. Neighbors, friends and casual
acquaintances wave to each other as they pass. That
friendliness is one of the many reasons why residents choose
to make Utica their home.
For a
small town like Utica, change often mimics the erosion of
the great glaciers that once covered Illinois -- slow but
constant. Time passes. It is marked by nuances in the façade
of the community and those who live there.
Mother Nature unleashed
This
was to change Tuesday, April 20, 2004. Mother Nature
unleashed her power in the form of a category F3 tornado,
which ripped through the village of Utica, leaving death and
devastation in her wake.
Eight
people lost their lives. Many more were injured.
Approximately 80 percent of downtown Utica had sustained
damage. Some businesses were flattened. Forty homes
destroyed. Twenty thousand yards of trees ripped from the
ground. Lives forever changed.
What
was a quaint river village is now designated a disaster area
by the federal and state governments after that fateful day.
Yet, six weeks later to the unfamiliar eye, there is little
evidence of the devastation.
If you
didn’t know about the tragedy, perhaps you wouldn’t notice
the empty lots on the drive through town. You might think
the typical summer construction is underway, that is until
you reach an empty lot where the Milestone Restaurant and
Tavern once stood. The site is now marked with a memorial
paying tribute to the eight people who lost their lives.
Although headquartered miles away, 1st Farm
Credit Services also was touched by this catastrophic event
through its clients’ experiences.
Chalus farm hit
 Ron
Chalus has been a 1st FCS client for the past 30
years. He has lived and farmed outside Utica his entire
life. This farm is where he was born and raised. The only
time Ron moved off the farm was the two years after he
married his wife Linda, when they rented a house down the
road, not far from home.
Today,
the Chaluses have three daughters and eight grandchildren.
This is the land they’ve tilled. The sweat equity invested
in the property is evident as you look around … fences,
additions to the house, buildings added, remodeling. It’s
the land and life they love.
On
April 20, Linda suggested they head over to Ottawa to drop
off their granddaughter’s Girl Scout sash on which she had
sewn patches that day. After the sash was delivered, Linda
wanted to stop for supper. She picked a highway restaurant
right off Route 6 as their dining destination. “We haven’t
had supper there the past 20 years,” Ron noted.
In the
middle of dinner, their daughter called and told them about
the impending storm and to stay put until the coast was
clear. So that’s what they did.
Once
the storm passed, the Chaluses headed home and the damage
became evident. As they approached home, Ron noticed a
damaged storage facility. Driving on, he realized the
neighbor’s 54-foot-by-90-foot shed was missing. “The next
thing I saw was our barn door, or shall I say the lack of
it,” Ron said. “That’s when I knew we’d been hit.”
Trees
shattered. Windows broken. Gutters missing. Shingles
scattered everywhere. Each building on the property suffered
roof damage. Shredded corn stalks blanketed the yard like
newly fallen snow. A large portion of a tree had landed on
Ron’s office, crushing it in two.
“We
were in shock,” Ron stated. “If you go on a direct path from
here to Utica, this is where the tornado came through. It
got one set of building about every mile. You can see the
trail. We’ve heard about so many of them in the past
month.”
Helping hands
Within
a half-hour that evening, 35 friends, neighbors and people
from church had shown up to help the Chalus family pick up
the pieces. The cleanup crew tackled their task aided by
friends’ generators – the storm also took the normal
comforts of electricity and water.
Night fell, along with an eerie silence. “These days in the
country, everyone has lights. That night, it was darker than
normal. It was strange and kind of spooky,” according to
Ron.
 The next morning as many as
50 people arrived to continue cleanup efforts. “We didn’t
realize so many people would come so quickly,” Ron said.
“Later, people told us they couldn’t stop because the
driveway was full at 8 o’clock in the morning.”
Ron noted with all the help, cleanup
was complete before they could get pictures of all the
damage. Six weeks later, repair work is under way. Windows
are replaced. “You don’t prepare for eight buildings to be
hit in one night,” according to Ron. “Now it’s time to
rebuild.
“It’s
ironic that we got hit,” he continued. “I’m a trustee for
the Utica Fire Department. When the village was hit, I
couldn’t go down there for the next couple of days because I
had so many problems at home.”
As Ron
contemplated the tragedy, he commented on those who lost
their lives. “I’m amazed the only eight people killed
thought they were in a safe place. Only a half-hour before,
the baseball field was full of people and little kids
playing ball. If we had been home, I would’ve been working
out in the yard at 6 p.m.”
The
Chalus family counts its blessings. “Besides all the help,
people have sent us money donations to replant flowers or to
use toward reconstruction. We were shocked when we received
a sizable gift certificate to a local landscaping company
with a note, ‘We weren’t there to help you, but we wanted to
do something.’ You don’t think about how good people are
until something like this happens,” Ron stated, shaking his
head.
Utica Elevator struck
Another
1st Farm Credit Services client hit by the
tornado was the Utica Elevator. According to Manager Jerry
Ebner, April 20 was just like any other day. “We were doing
some normal maintenance around the facility. We had a
thunderstorm watch early evening, but that all changed at 6
p.m.,” Jerry stated.
Utica
has been Jerry’s home for the past 17 years. He was in the
kitchen when the siren sounded. He looked out the window and
saw the funnel cloud moving through downtown. 
“You
could see debris way up in the tornado,” Jerry recalled.
“And it was loud, very loud. Sounded like three or four
trains. The wind made a lot of noise, along with the debris
and things getting ripped apart. It was loud and kind of
scary.”
Afterward, Jerry told his wife he was heading downtown. The
police already had barricaded the highway into town. He
turned around and tried a different route.
“By the time I made it on the scene, there were people
digging through Main Street and the rubble where people were
trapped. There were so many people helping, I decided to
head to our property.”
The damage to the Utica
Elevator facilities was extensive. All six bins, as well as
the concrete house, were damaged. Three bins and a bolted
steel tank were destroyed. The tanks had a combined total
storage capacity of more than 210,000 bushels.
“The wind collapsed the bins that
were empty or tore them right off the foundation. The
remaining bins left standing had grain in them. That’s why
the sidewalls weren’t affected, but the roofs were
destroyed. The grain provided enough weight to keep the bins
from collapsing,” Jerry said.
The loss for the Utica Elevator would
mount. Elevator superintendent Jay Vesane was found dead in
the rubble of the Milestone Restaurant and Tavern. “The past
several years, he had worked at our Ottawa facility. But we
move personnel around, just like other places. He had been
back here for a couple of days,” Jerry stated.
Jerry
remained on the property into the wee hours of the morning.
“We had inventory that needed to be secured. Insecticide on
the property had to be treated as hazardous material, and
there were procedures to be followed.
“First,
we focused on removing the hazardous materials,” he
continued. “The restrictions of vehicles in and out of town
complicated the matter. Initially, we couldn’t get the
trucks in that were going to pick up this material for us.
Next, our goal was to remove all the grain. We had these
bins with no tops on them.”
Focused on the future
Utica Elevator, as well as those
affected by this disaster, has to decide what will be
repaired or replaced and whether to stay put or relocate
based on the village’s decision regarding final highway
routing through town. “It’s a decision that will change the
direction of the company for many years to come. You don’t
want to rush into it,” according to Jerry.
 He
added that they’re on track to operate the elevator in the
fall. They just won’t have as much space, and it won’t take
as long to fill. He believes the key is sound logistical
planning.
“We’ll
put the dryer back. Hopefully, we’ll be able to handle all
the corn that comes in. Sure, we’ll give up some things, but
the main focus is to take grain from customers who want to
bring it in.”
Jerry
is optimistic, despite the hard work ahead. “I’m hoping for
a big, early crop. Everything’s in place, ready for us to go
ahead to be up and running by mid-September.”
Jerry commented on how giving everyone was throughout the
ordeal. “We had offers from businesses and people to provide
help. Our patrons and stockholders called and said,
‘Anything you need, call me, I’ll be there.’”
He contends that in the end
everyone will benefit from this horrific tragedy. “The
village will survive. It’s a tough little town. We’ll see
the village as a whole, better than it was.” |
