THE
Daily Egyptian SERVING THE SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1916.
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
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Lonelinesss: A Modern Torture Device
WEDNESDAY, April 5, 2023
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Book bans in a polarized age
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SIU Rugby Teams Host Annual AllFools Tournament
VOL. 106, ISSUE 28
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“Cowboy butts drive me nuts”
Salem after the tornado: A town that sticks together when things are torn apart Ryan Grieser rgrieser@dailyegyptian.com
A cool breeze swept through the morning air of Sunday, April 2, as residents of Salem’s “The Orchard” neighborhood walked through the streets, taking in the sights of their shattered homes and speaking to whomever they saw. According to the National Weather Service, a much different kind of wind rampaged through the south side of Salem on March 31: a confirmed EF1 tornado, one of about 50 twisters, some of them catastrophic, that swept the Midwest and South, killing at least 32 people. While much of the damage in Salem was concentrated on a small radius inside town, there were still victims outside of it, like the Henns. Brooke Henn said, “You could hear, it was coming diagonal this way.” Back in town, Ada Wethorford, Jason and Deborah Vaughn, and Shirley Sweet stood together on a central corner and talked about the night of the storm together. Many residents of “The Orchard” had little to no warning before it blew through. Jessica Schoonover said, “Pretty much as soon as the siren started sounding, the tornado, the sound of the tornado, completely drowned it out.” Donald Linder said, “Before I could Bud Miller (right), owner of Midwestern BBQ, works with Royce Bringwald (left) to clean up the even get out of my chair, it hit… I remains of his local barbeque place that suffered damage from the Mar. 31 storm that touched down didn’t even have time to get to the April 2, 2023 in Salem, Ill. “...They are already donating,” Miller said. “If I can get enough I’ll start it up bedroom.” somewhere else in Salem, they want me to really bad… ” Lylee Gibbs | @lyleegibbsphotography Mayor Nic Farley said there was only a few minutes of warning. “We got the alert from the National after the tornado sirens went off, her As soon as the storm was over Weather Service at 8:09 PM. At 8:14 family lost power. They then took shelter and each knew they were ok, many was the first confirmed report of a funnel and in “no time” the noises were over. residents went to make sure everybody cloud.” “It was just a sudden occurrence that else was too. The storm passed as quickly as it came. didn’t last long, and it was over and “As soon as it hit, I went outside and all The high winds blew a tree through done. Within five minutes, it was over the neighbors had come out and everyone Shelley Westman’s home, and destroyed and done, everything, if that long,” was checking on everybody, I mean, three storage sheds and a fence. Westman said. pretty much instantly,” Linder said. Westman said that about 30 seconds Jason Vaughn said, “As soon as
it was over, it was dead silent. All I could hear was the neighbor here hollering, ‘help, she’s trapped.’ I don’t even know if I touched the ground the whole way across here. She was in her house, Jeff [another resident] was out here. It was just chaos.” Downed tree limbs and insulation littered the yards of several residents. Odder objects, such as toys and books, layed in the yards of others, while chunks of tin were suspended high in trees. The roof, insulation and miscellaneous objects were all displaced from a storage complex, which was devastated by the storm. Schoonover and Linder lost the front porch of their house and still had neither power nor gas nearly two days after it hit. “We’re the only ones left on the block. Everyone else has moved out,” Schoonover said. Other houses in the surrounding area were also affected. One anonymous Salem resident’s home was moved completely off its foundation and detached entirely from the garage. Another had a massive tree fall, crushing the carport and the cars inside, as well as damaging the main roof. Jeremiah Gibson, an SIU alum and sixth generation farmer in Salem, lost a machine shed, while the Henns lost a large tree and had damage to the ceiling and roof of their home. The unpredictability of tornadoes was on full display in Gibson’s case. He said, “It literally picked up that whole building and threw it over there, and left the wrenches sitting up there on the sprayer… it was like, ‘ah, just leave me here.’” There was a swift response from the city; Farley said that “within an hour”, there were dozens of emergency services personnel “going door to door to make sure nobody was hurt.” Please see SALEM | 8
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