Some residents had little warning of destructive storms

SHILOH, Ill. -- When a tornado and strong winds tore through her town, resident Meryl Daniels thought it was just another spring storm -- until she noticed the streets cracking. The tornado warning didn't sound until a half-hour after the twister touched down.

When another tornado landed more than 100 miles south in Dongola, Fire Chief Rick Acuff was in his pickup truck, speeding to the station to sound the alarm. Few there knew what was coming, either.

In an age of advanced technology, many Illinois residents were caught off guard in the earliest hours of Sunday morning, when tornadoes and strong winds cut paths of destruction outside St. Louis and across small towns near the Kentucky border.

The storms, part of a system that gripped the Midwest, unleashed the second deadly tornado this year in Illinois, killing a 69-year-old woman in Dongola. It also spawned a twister in southeast Missouri that killed a 12-year-old boy.

Although no serious injuries were reported from Illinois' storms, the violent weather left businesses and homes leveled or damaged, giant trees uprooted like weeds and the children in the tiny town of Cypress looking for a new school. It also left questions about why more people didn't know what was coming until it was too late.

In the area across from St. Louis, the National Weather Service didn't sound its warning before a tornado touched down around 10:30 p.m. simply because they didn't spot it, meteorologist Steve Thomas said.

"Forecasters look for certain signatures ... and we didn't get the indication that storm was turning into a tornado," he said. "It's an extremely tough call sometimes."

Weather officials sounded an alarm at around 11:10 p.m. not to notify people of what already had occurred, but to warn them of another tornado officials had spotted, he said.

In Dongola, a village of 700 people whose fire department is all volunteers, Acuff was alerted by Union County's alarm on his emergency radio at home, he said.

He quickly hopped in his pickup for the trip across town to sound the alarm at the station, but the twister hit before he made it, he said.

"I don't know that there was anything we could have done about it," said Acuff, who escaped without injury. "It was moving too fast."

St. Clair County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency Director Darryl Elbe said he will investigate why many had little warning. But he said he's grateful no one was seriously hurt.

"That's the important thing," Elbe said.