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- <text id=90TT2374>
- <title>
- Sep. 10, 1990: American Notes:Illinois
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Sep. 10, 1990 Playing Cat And Mouse
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 46
- American Notes
- ILLINOIS
- A Stealthy Killer
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Without warning, violent winds up to 300 m.p.h. twisted out
- of the northern Illinois sky last week, vented their fury in
- a 16-mile-long path, then vanished. Sister Mary Keenan,
- principal of St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Grade School in
- Plainfield, was swept away from a group of teachers seeking
- safety in the school and was killed. Nine residents of the town
- of Crest Hill died when they were sucked from their three-story
- apartment complex and hurled 40 ft. away into a cornfield. In
- the tornado's swath across Joliet and neighboring small towns,
- at least 27 people died and more than 90 others were injured.
- Damage wrought by gusts powerful enough to toss dumpsters into
- trees was placed at more than $100 million.
- </p>
- <p> After the shock of loss, questions arose over the lack of
- warning from the National Weather Service's radar and its
- volunteer spotter network. "We feel there should have been some
- warning," said Will County Executive Charles Adelman with grim
- understatement. Explained NWS's Chicago meteorologist Paul
- Dailey: "The radar did not indicate any kind of rotation, hook
- or comma-shaped signal on the edge of the cloud. All we needed
- was one person to call us, but we didn't get a single report."
- The Weather Service's Washington supervisors were sending a
- team to find out why the killer storm's stealthy approach had
- not been detected.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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