The skies started darkening around noon on Friday and began to threaten just another spring Southern Illinois storm on that day. At shortly after 1:30 P.M in Marion, enormous blasts of wind and rain started leaning trees over and snapping them like twigs. Constant and incessant winds measuring from 70 to over 100 MPH were registered by the National Weather Service.
In only a half an hour, the storm had caused millions of dollars of property damage, destroyed hundreds if not thousands of trees in town and forever changed the look of our town forever. Fortunately, unlike the tornado of May 1982 this storm claimed only personal injury and property damage and not lives.
Williamson, Jackson, Franklin, Gallatin, Randolph and Saline Counties were listed as state disaster areas by then state Governor Pat Quinn who toured the area.
According to WSIL-TV meteorologist Deborah O’Neill, “This was bigger than what we would call a tornado. Generically it was a line of strong winds. It had it all.” The afternoon blast featured a strong low-pressure system with an eye-like center with high winds around it. This prompted the “inland hurricane” descriptor.
“On radar, we could see an intense area of low-pressure,” O’Neill said. “The National Weather Service is saying it was dangerous winds with a comma head after the bow echo.” Hurricane strength gusts are 74 MPH.
The storm initially looked like a “dorecho” to O’Neill, but Friday’s event was too small for that classification. “Usually that’s a straight-line phenomenon that moves over hundreds of miles quickly; she said, “This had huge wind damage, but it was a small area.”
After the storm, the cleanup effort called for just about everyone with a chain saw. Groups of people from outside of Marion came to the rescue in the cleanup and rebuilding effort. They were housed at local churches and schools.
Ameren-CIPS set up a tent city in the Old Walmart parking lot area off of W. Deyoung Street for their army of 1,900 field and support people to operate out of, while lines were being restored in the area. Many people went without power for five days till the following Tuesday, although a few sections of town had to endure the power outage a little longer than that.
Many of the churches in town and the Red Cross set up temporary housing for displaced citizens and out of town work crews, in addition to establishing funds to help those in need to get their homes livable.
The city and county was placed on a nightly curfew to discourage plundering of damaged businesses and homes.
During the course of several days, most if not all schools and businesses were closed down due to damage and the inability to traverse blocked roads and streets.
As of this writing in 2013, the damage caused by this storm is still evident in the lack of trees and the still living, but damaged, trees that are visible. Before the storm, the Marion VA hospital grounds likely had about 80 to 100 trees, mostly older oaks. They alone lost over 70 of them.
(Data extracted from the Marion Daily Republican, compiled by Sam Lattuca on 05/16/2013)