The story of Fairdale’s resilience and community-wide recovery effort following a devastating tornado in 2015.
[parallax-scroll id=”5775″]Words by Colton Warren
Fairdale, Illinois — Just 65 miles west of Chicago lies the modest township of Fairdale, Illinois. Its .23-square mile area is surrounded by acres of cornfields, and it has gone relatively unnoticed since the area was settled in 1842. That was until April 9, 2015, when Mother Nature violently changed the reality for Fairdale’s 150 residents.
Around 6:40 p.m. that Thursday night, a tornado touched down outside Franklin Grove, about 26 miles southwest of Fairdale. It moved quickly and increased in strength to an EF4 rating as it tore across the vast open fields, with tiny Fairdale in its crosshairs.
“I remember we were at work talking about the storm and how it always misses us. Because every time — because we are kind of in a valley — it always misses us,” says Jessica Fruit, a resident of nearby Kirkland.
But this time, the storm didn’t miss. It slammed into the town just after 7 p.m.
And Fairdale changed forever.
“Seeing the disaster was the worst thing in my life,” says John Davis, who has lived in Fairdale for over 20 years.
The once ordinary town — lush green trees dotting yards, the central community park a regular gathering place for friends and families, barbeques on a sunny weekend afternoon — exemplified rural Illinois life, in which family and community came only second to the crop fields that lie just outside of town. Now, the worst natural disaster to strike DeKalb County in generations would bring Fairdale’s residents closer than ever before in unimaginable ways.
The devastation would affect countless numbers of people in the year since. At least 90 properties in and around Fairdale, including 66 residences in town alone, sustained significant damage. Twenty-one homes were leveled. Personal belongings and artifacts were strewn across miles of land; cars flipped and transformed into useless piles of metal, some propelled at speeds great enough to wrap themselves around what trees were left standing. Fairdale was unrecognizable.
“There was, at a glance, no reason for hope,” says Bill Nicklas, a DeKalb County resident who became instrumental in leading the rebuilding of Fairdale.
But hope soon materialized. With the help of countless volunteers, first responders, local churches, organizations and athletic teams, the remaining rubble was removed. Over the days and months following, Fairdale’s resiliency became the cornerstone for the entire community. As foundations were poured for new homes to be built, a stronger, closer-knit community was formed.
“Everybody helps everybody here,” says resident Deena Schell, who was living with her parents and two daughters on the west side of town when the tornado hit.
Neighbors and families alike rose up from what the tornado left of their former community, united by the common goal of rebuilding and restoring their beloved town. With the help of several nonprofit organizations, and left with little government assistance, what may have seemed like years of progress is visible today, just one short year later.
On the one-year anniversary of the storm, however, the survivors’ memories were still vivid.
“Well, we were in the basement,” Davis says, whose home sits near the train tracks that run south of town. “I was sitting on the bottom basement step and they were in the corner — (my wife) and my stepdaughter — and she said, ‘There goes the train.’ I said, ‘That ain’t no train. That’s it.’”
Before the tornado nearly wiped it off the map, Fairdale was a quiet, “blink and you’ll miss it” town tucked along two-lane Highway 72 in northwest Illinois, surrounded by miles and miles of seemingly endless farmland. The closest city of significant size is Rockford, about a 30-mile drive north. About 40 miles to the east, the sprawling suburbs of Chicago begin before giving way to the city itself and Lake Michigan.
The folks who live in Fairdale make up a varied population, with ages ranging from infant to retired seniors. Many families are several decades, or even generations, embedded in the history of the blue-collar community. The unincorporated town boasts just six paved roads — three running east to west, three running north to south — and one unpaved residential road. There’s no grocery store, no bar, no post office, no gas station. A leisurely stroll around its perimeter would cost just 15 minutes of time. The odds were incredibly small, then, that this tiny speck of a town would take a deadly hit from an enormous tornado like the one on that April day.
The tornado, weakened slightly to an EF3, turned nearly the entire town upside down, stripping limbs from trees, tossing entire homes several football fields in distance, and mangling the landscape into something unrecognizable.
“I opened up my eyes again, and then the whole house just left,” Schell says. “It was gone. It was just like out of a movie. It picked itself up and just threw it. One level flew over there, and the second level flew across the highway.”
“There was glass flying, dirt. You could hear the ‘pop, pop, popping’ of the windows, and then it was over,” says Schell’s mother, Mary Powell. “I was digging my fingers — I don’t know why — into the cement, thinking it would hold me. I was hanging onto my granddaughter Calli’s leg. She only weighs 70 pounds. Deena had Calli’s other leg and then was hanging onto her other daughter, Haleigh.”
[parallax-scroll id=”5780″]This photo, captured by local storm photographer Tom Purdy, shows the EF4 tornado at 7:14 p.m., around the time it passed through the small rural town of Fairdale, Illinois. Photo courtesy of Tom Purdy.
According to the National Weather Service, the April 9 tornado was the strongest on record in DeKalb County since 1950, when the agency began issuing tornado alerts to the public. Its estimated peak winds of 200 miles per hour were so strong and destructive that the weather service radar that detects rotations in storms was partially distorted because of the amount of debris lofted by the tornado. Debris were found up to 80 miles away in Racine, Wisconsin.
First responders and DeKalb County residents raced to Fairdale, where the destruction was unlike anything many had ever seen.
“I stepped out of my back door, looked to the west and there it was — there was the tornado,” says Chad Connell, Kirkland Community Fire chief, a first responder to the scene that night. “By the time I had the time to register what was going on, our pagers dropped for our fire department to respond to Fairdale for multiple houses down.
“I raced out to the station, got my vehicle, got what guys we had that had shown up at the station, got them sort of put on trucks and got out here. Only to get as far as just east of town — the roads were blocked — so we had to backtrack and come around down South Street here, and we still couldn’t get in,” Connell says.
The destruction was unparalleled. At its peak, the tornado was 700 yards wide. Nearly every structure was damaged, if not demolished. Two longtime residents, Jackie Klosa and Geraldine “Geri” Schultz, lost their lives. Both women’s homes sat on the west-central side of town, the most severely damaged area.
“Well, you know, your heart sinks,” Connell says. “People start to come towards you; they had seen the lights and that sort of stuff and they are asking for help.”
[parallax-scroll id=”5777″]Donations flooded in from all over the state in the days following the devastating tornado. These are just some of the items that piled up at the Kirkland Community Fire Department. Residents were able to pick up necessities a few times a week in the months following. Photo courtesy of DeKalb County Long Term Recovery Corporation.
Connell says in the following days he witnessed something truly remarkable.
“The next couple days following the actual storm were — that’s the story. That’s the real story because we had so many people come out to help,” Connell says. “It was unbelievable. The community, people in the community who put their lives aside to take care of all these poor people out here in Fairdale, it was amazing.”
Jessica Fruit was one of those residents involved in the recovery from the very beginning. She said the tornado missed her home by less than a mile, but one of her closest friends living in Fairdale lost everything.
“I showed up at the fire department the next morning,” Fruit says. “Went to Sam’s Club, bought some stuff and showed up at the fire department and was just helping with donations and directing things.
“All of a sudden, I was put in charge of all those donations,” Fruit says.
Those donations piled up in a hurry. Fruit says about 13 semitrailers worth of donations — toothbrushes, water, clothes, cleaning supplies, garbage bags; just about anything — arrived at the Kirkland Fire Department in the days following.
“And that doesn’t include what people came and got in those couple days,” Fruit says.
The Kirkland Fire Department became the center of the cleanup. That night, displaced residents were transported to the station for safety after the town was evacuated. Fruit describes the scene that weekend, much of which she spent at the station as they set up operations. She says residents stopped in to pick up the most basic necessities.
“It was crazy,” Fruit says. “We had lines of people bringing stuff in. And we actually did kind of like an assembly line, pass the bags down the line and get it into the fire department. The fire department was nowhere near big enough for what we needed, but we had no idea. We had no idea.”
The tornado left Fairdale a shell of its former self, hollowed out and broken. Left intact, however, was a full sense of community and the strong spirit of many.
“Small town strong,” Fruit says. “We did it. And we’re going to continue doing it.”
That three-word phrase — “small town strong” — became the rallying cry for the past year of recovery in Fairdale. From the hundreds of volunteers lending a hand in the cleanup to the DeKalb County Long Term Recovery Corporation (DCLTRC), a non-profit organization formed by volunteers around DeKalb County to lead the recovery, rebuilding Fairdale has been an astounding success.
“We have had good support,” Bill Nicklas says, former president and current vice president of the recovery corporation. “At the end of the year, we had some nice additional donations that came in…all private donations, about $1.5 million.”
By no means has it been easy. An old farm town, many of Fairdale’s basic infrastructures were built before zoning standards were established in DeKalb County, and now they didn’t meet codes for rebuilding. Well and septic systems were far from health department standards. Propane gas tanks peppered the town, as no natural gas services extended so far into the countryside.
Although the town suffered an estimated $7.9 million in property damage, it didn’t meet the $18 million threshold to qualify for federal disaster assistance. Nor would there be any state or county aid.
“I found out about 10 days into the disaster there was not going to be any federal money, and there wasn’t going to be any state money because there was no state disaster recovery fund,” Nicklas says. “And there likely wasn’t going to be any county money. This is an unincorporated part of DeKalb County.”
While Nicklas says the county paid for the removal of debris, it was clear to him a long road lay ahead for Fairdale.
“People were pretty much on their own. That just didn’t seem right,” he says. “It also didn’t seem there was going to be a good path to recovery.”
Nicklas said the first thing the recovery corporation sought to accomplish was to simply get to know the people of Fairdale and what they needed to move forward. The first project was a community septic system, and with a few large donations from private funds, they succeeded. It was designed, built and installed by December 18, 2015.
“People still had the challenge of getting their system in their house connected to our public system,” Nicklas says. He estimated it cost over $1,000 per house to make the connection, an impossible expense after the massive losses. The influx of private donations helped pay for the connections.
“Now we can give grants to people to help them connect. And we’re very happy about that,” Nicklas says.
The new community septic system provided the spark Fairdale needed. In the months following the storm, the recovery corporation reached an agreement with Nicor Gas, the local natural gas company, to extend service past Kirkland to Fairdale.
“Most of these families were running on propane — up to 600 bucks a winter,” Fruit says, who has served on the board of the recovery corporation for the past year. “Now, they have Nicor gas and they just have a gas bill like the rest of us.”
Nicklas says another unexpected partnership came about last summer. After discovering a fiber-optic cable line running near town, the nonprofit corporation worked with Syndeo Networks, a local IT firm, to get permission to tap into the line. A community Wi-Fi network was routed to the central part of town, providing residents with a reliable web service.
“It’s as fast as anywhere in the world,” Nicklas says. “I tell you, it’s mega-fast.”
In a year’s time, Nicklas says of the 21 homes that were “completely blown away,” 15 have seen groundbreaking for a new building. And they expect at least another five new housing projects to start in 2016. In addition, 28 damaged homes have been restored.
[parallax-scroll id=”5782″]Deena Schell (center) and her two daughters, Haleigh (left) and Calli (right), stake a commemorative outline marking the foundation of their new home during a groundbreaking ceremony in Fairdale on April 9, 2016. Photo by Colton Warren.
The start of the 16th housing project was a highlight of a groundbreaking ceremony on April 9, 2016, the one-year anniversary of the devastation. Schell and Habitat for Humanity of DeKalb County partnered to bring Schell and her two daughters back home to Fairdale, on the very plot of land where they nearly lost their lives just one year prior.
“Habitat for Humanity is helping us, so there’s going to be a lot of sweat equity going into it and a lot of family friends helping us,” Schell says. “It’s going to be blessed. We’re blessed to be here.
“This is everything; I can’t believe I get to come home,” Schell says.
She and Habitat for Humanity have a move-in date already set in mind. “Hopefully by August 17 because school starts then.”
Schell’s groundbreaking wasn’t the only celebration that day. At a private brunch, residents mourned the lives lost and the devastation and remembered a year’s worth of progress. Then the entire community met at the Fairdale Community Park in the center of town to pay their respects to the neighbors they lost and to honor the volunteers who contributed to the recovery effort. A park bench was dedicated in memory of Schultz and Klosa, and a plaque was unveiled honoring Fairdale’s history, dating to a log schoolhouse first built in 1842.
“This is the first time that Fairdale as a community is back together in one place except for those community meetings, which were always a little stressful. That was business and all that,” Nicklas says. “This is enjoyment, social, feeling like a town again.”
The enjoyment was apparent. Residents, first responders, volunteers, friends and family gathered under clear blue skies, a vastly different day than a year earlier. Cake commemorated the community-wide effort, and children ran around flying kites, screaming with elation that the beloved park in the center of town was finally playable again.
“Today has been fantastic,” John Davis says with joy. “I had my wife down here, my little granddaughter — 7 years old — and she’s really been looking forward to coming back down here to play in the park.”
“Today’s a good day,” Connell adds. “It’s going to be a tough day but it’s a good day…It’s just a day of healing. Mother Nature put a nasty scar on this town, and we’re just trying to cover up that scar.”
[parallax-scroll id=”5784″]Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner shakes the hand of Kirkland Community Fire Chief Chad Connell, as Rauner walked the streets of Fairdale to a dedication ceremony in the community park. Photo by Sarah Fulton.
Also in attendance was Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who spoke briefly at both the groundbreaking and park dedication ceremonies.
“Fairdale is not as strong as its houses or trees,” Rauner says. “It is as strong as its community. The people of Fairdale are strong and resilient, as the people of Illinois are strong and resilient.”
There’s no doubt this community’s strength was tested April 9, 2015, and each day in the year that followed. Connell says that test of collective strength has cemented his heart in the community forever.
“You know what, I look back at that and I would not want to live any place other than here,” Connell says. “I’ve met so many people in this town who I didn’t know prior to this disaster, so many people. Good people who reached out. Some of these people are my heroes because they helped.”
Nicklas, too, stopped to recognize the progress a year’s time has brought.
“The clock was ticking basically since April 9 of last year. And I think we basically hit the mark,” Nicklas says. “I feel this is probably the most grown-up thing I have ever done.
“Temperamentally, I am fairly private about my emotions, I don’t get choky very much. Sometimes I probably should. And I’ve had my heart in my throat all day today,” Nicklas says.
While many residents traveled that long country road to get back home, there still remains much work ahead.
“They climbed the Alps in the last year,” Nicklas says. “And for some of them, it’s all down toward green valleys, and for others there’s still another hill to climb, but we are here for them.”
“It’s not the old Fairdale we used to have — it never will be,” Davis says, who now calls the entire Fairdale community his family. “But at least we are getting our neighbors and stuff, and our families, back in here.”
The climb will continue for Fairdale in 2016. For the recovery corporation, funds remain from the $1.5 million in donations raised over the year. They are set for several housing projects, cleanup along the ditches, possibly adding lights around the park, seeding and sodding across town, and “ultimately, at the end of the year, we hope to get the roads rebuilt,” Nicklas says. “We’re going to stay in existence until — as one of the people said earlier today — until they are ready to turn out the light in their new home in Fairdale.”
