10 years later: Life persists in Fairdale after devastating tornado

FAIRDALE – A decade after the strongest tornado to come through DeKalb County in recorded history decimated Fairdale, the scars left by the storm still are evident across the small but persisting town.

On the evening of April 9, 2015, an EF-4 tornado with maximum winds of 200 mph formed near Franklin Grove in Lee County. The twister traveled through the northwest side of Rochelle, across Interstate 39, through Fairdale – a town of a couple hundred people in northwestern DeKalb County – and ended south of Belvidere, according to the National Weather Service.

The tornado injured 22 people and killed two Fairdale residents: Geraldine Schultz, 67, and Jacklyn K. Klosa, 69.

Ed Silvers, who has lived in Fairdale for the past 45 years, said he knew what Klosa would do when severe weather approached their homes.

“She used to go into her bathroom with her purse and her cellphone when weather was bad,” Silvers said. “Unfortunately, it was a pre-Civil War house, as I understand it. My house was not bolted to the foundation. Hers was not either, but hers ended up in a pile with her inside it.”

More than two dozen buildings in Fairdale were destroyed by the tornado, and virtually every property in town was affected. Before the storm, there were just shy of 60 properties in Fairdale, Silvers said. Today, that number stands at 39.

“The town is louder now from the highway. That one house on the corner lost 27 trees on the property.”

—  Fairdale resident Ed Silvers

Empty lots and buildings that appear dilapidated stand out next to new construction and repaired structures in Fairdale. Many of the unused lots, where homes were leveled and the former owners decided not to rebuild, have been bought by the owners of adjacent properties.

The lots where Klosa and Schultz lived have long since been cleared of rubble. But 10 years later, they remain empty aside from a nameless memorial with a cross, flowers, wagon and floodlight situated near a small piece of concrete building foundation.

Beyond the empty properties and tattered buildings, evidence of the tornado can be found a decade later throughout the landscape of Fairdale. The northwest side of town, which took a direct hit, has far fewer trees than the east end. Piles of rubble still can be found on some properties on that side of town, and the remains of trees too large to wrap your arms around are still rooted.

Silvers said the tornado reshaped the community in more ways than one.

“It was kind of weird because we lost 26 houses, and along with that were the families we were used to seeing,” Silvers said. “And [the town lost] many, many trees. The town is louder now from the highway. That one house on the corner lost 27 trees on the property.”

Adrienne Truran moved to Fairdale in the early 2000s and was home when the tornado forever changed her community. She has since moved away from Fairdale, but her daughter still lives in the neighborhood-sized town.

Asked what she remembers about the day the tornado struck, Truran said April 9, 2015, was a beautiful but particularly warm spring day. The weather drew many of the townspeople to spend their day outside.

“We started seeing weird stuff roll in, and then eventually it started hailing, so we all ran to our houses,” Truran said, remembering the day’s weather. “After that, it all went crazy.”

That day, 11 tornadoes occurred across Illinois, seven of which took place in Lee, Ogle, Winnebago, DeKalb, Boone and McHenry counties, according to the NWS. Of those seven, only the EF-4 tornado that hit Rochelle and Fairdale was stronger than an EF-2. The tornado that devastated the area was strongest when it was north of Rochelle, turning into an EF-3 while moving through Fairdale in the northwest corner of DeKalb County.

Zachary Yack, a meteorologist with NWS Chicago, said his office, which is based out of Romeoville and covers 23 counties in northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, typically reports 16 tornadoes each year.

“We usually see them on the weaker variety, so EF-0-, EF-1-type tornadoes. So, to get something of EF-4 intensity is actually quite rare for us,” Yack said. “It’s something that probably happens maybe once a decade, if not even longer than that.”

Over the past 10 years, the NWS Chicago office has not reported a tornado stronger than the one that struck Fairdale in 2015.

The NWS uses the Enhanced Fujita Scale to assess and rate the strength of tornadoes based on the damage found in their path. Without verifiable wind speed measurements, storm surveyors try to quantify how strong the winds in a tornado were by looking at the amount of damage the storm caused.

Yack said EF-0 and EF-1 tornadoes – vastly more common than tornadoes of stronger intensities – can topple small trees, rip shingles off roofs and tear the siding off houses. He said that level of damage is minor and more of a nuisance compared with what the Fairdale tornado was capable of producing.

“When you’re talking EF-4- and EF-5-level damage, you’re looking at basically houses swept off their foundation,” Yack said. “Homes and businesses basically leveled without much staying, except for maybe interior rooms and, again, maybe just the foundation is left in many cases.”

Although the tornado was not graded as an EF-4 when it tore through Fairdale, Silvers and Truran said many of the homes in their community were turned into piles of rubble by the storm. The tornado was the strongest in the NWS Chicago warning area since an F-5 tornado struck Plainfield on Aug. 28, 1990.

Debris from the Fairdale tornado flew almost 20,000 feet into the air, according to a radar correlation coefficient cross-section image of the tornado taken by the NWS at 7:13 p.m. April 9.

The tornado spawned at 6:39 p.m. in Lee County and lifted at 7:20 p.m., about 10 minutes after it passed through Fairdale.

“We started seeing weird stuff roll in, and then eventually it started hailing, so we all ran to our houses. After that, it all went crazy.”

—  Adrienne Truran, former Fairdale resident

Silvers and Truran said they still are gobsmacked by the scale of support their town received in the storm’s aftermath. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office set up a trailer in the town as a headquarters for storm cleanup. That stayed near their home for weeks, while volunteers from across the state came to assist their community.

Volunteers from Northern Illinois University cleared debris from the fields of nearby farms. Excavating companies came in to help clear rubble left by demolished houses.

Truran and Silvers said they weren’t impressed with officials from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, but volunteers with The Salvation Army went above and beyond to support the community.

Interim DeKalb County Administrator Derek Hiland reminded members of the DeKalb County Board on April 9 that they were meeting 10 years to the day of the 2015 Fairdale tornado.

“Lives [were] lost and forever changed because of that event that happened 10 years ago,” Hiland said. “[We’re] thinking of everybody in Fairdale and those impacted from ... that devastating tornado.”

Although DeKalb County has not seen a tornado near the strength that Fairdale weathered over the past decade, that doesn’t mean it can’t happen again. The Fairdale tornado ended an almost four-year tornado drought in DeKalb County, according to the NWS.

Yack said anyone who lives in an area prone to severe weather should have multiple ways to be warned of an impending threat.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration radios are most often recommended for those looking to be informed of thunderstorm and tornado warnings, especially in rural areas.

Yack said local news, cellphone apps and social media also are good ways to stay informed during a severe weather emergency.

Truran said news stations were the primary way townspeople were informed of impending severe weather in 2015, but because it was an abnormally warm day, “nobody was watching the news.”

“Nobody watched the news until they went into the house, and then they were watching the news, and a lot of people obviously were videotaping because it was a crazy effect that was going on here,” Truran said. “The sky turned eerie colors and hail, obviously, was weird.”

Although the community still is seeking to remove tornado damage and refurbish blighted property, a Fairdale historical marker that was dedicated exactly one year after the tornado swept through town noted that things could have been worse.

“EF-4 tornado April 9 that nearly destroyed Fairdale,” officials wrote on the marker.