Sheltering during the storm: ‘We could hear things cracking above’

Lanark, Shannon residents clean up after storm leaves path of destruction

By EARLEEN HINTON ehinton@shawmedia.com

Rob Gunderson knew something was happening outside after he and his family retreated to the basement of their home on North Fork Creek Road in Shannon, a few miles west of Forreston on March 31.

“We went to the basement when we heard the storm warnings. It was weird. We could hear things cracking above, but we didn’t know what,” he said Saturday.

The 45-year-old dairy farmer took a short break April 1 as he and his three kids – along with friends –worked to salvage big bales of hay from one of his sheds leveled by Friday night’s storm.

“We lost two buildings, but no lives were lost so that was a blessing,” he said.

His dairy herd of 240 cows were not injured, but two storage sheds on the family farm were leveled. The home lost some shingles, but remained intact.

Gunderson and a friend worked adeptly with their skid steers moving building debris off the stacked bales of hay and then transferring them nearby to a lot were some of the cows watched while munching on their lunch.

Gunderson said friends had quickly come to help with cleanup.

“That’s another blessing, too. You find out how many friends you really have when they just start showing up,” he said. “And we never lost electricity and that was important, too.”

His children, Ella, Owen and Ethan, stood by in the cold, strong north wind helping when they could by grabbing smaller pieces of the shed’s wood frame and snarled sheet metal roof and carrying them to nearby piles.

“It’s surprising that everything that had living things in it didn’t get damaged,” said Colson Lamb, 12, who also was helping.

Just to the west, along Illinois 72, Amanda Gempeler, 41, and her daughter, Avery, 12, also rode out the storm after Amanda’s mom called to warn that a tornado had been spotted nearby.