Living through a Nightmare

They lay huddled in basements and broom closets across town as the fury of Mother Nature tore through the community. On the other side of the town at Village Hall, they manned switchboards as hundreds of calls flooded in; demanding to know the whereabouts of loved ones. And in the immediate aftermath of the storm, they wielded everything from shovels to their bare hands to help neighbors, friends and complete strangers.

Although the destruction caused by the Oak Lawn Tornado of 1967 was truly awe-inspiring, the experiences of those residents that were trapped in their homes and cars reminds us of not only the sheer terror, but also the miracles that allowed so many to make it through that fateful April afternoon.

As part of our coverage of the tornado’s 44th anniversary, Oak Lawn Patch looks at some of the remarkable stories of survival amid one of Chicago-area’s worst natural disasters in recent history, taken from the headlines of the day from the collection of historic newspapers in the Oak Lawn Library’s Local History Room.

The massive funnel cloud that developed on the outskirts of Palos Hills reached the peak of its intensity as it barreled, full-force, into Oak Lawn and the busy intersection of 95th Street and Southwest Highway.  Edward Switalski was sitting in his car, waiting for a red light to change when he heard the unmistakable sound of tearing metal.  “I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that the sky was greenish-black,” he told the Chicago American in an interview days after the storm. “Suddenly, things began to hit the car and it tumbled over and over.” The off-duty electrician would regain consciousness several minutes later, amazingly only suffering a few cuts and scrapes.

Shoot’s Lynwood Lounge, a frequent stop for truck drivers and locals alike, bore the full brunt of the cyclone as it tossed vehicles from the intersection like mere toys. Owner Ken Shoot’s wife and stepdaughter pulled up to collect Ken moments before the storm struck. Taking shelter under a pool table, the proprietor ducked just in time as cars were hurled through the watering hole’s front windows.  When the smoke cleared, Mrs. Shoot had somehow escaped injury, but daughter Catherine and son Jackson did not.

By the end of the day, rescuers would recover ten bodies, most of them still inside their cars, from the twisted heaps of rubble all along Southwest Highway.

Bill Egan, a young boy of only 12, peered out of his basement window when the looming black mass rapidly approached his house. He recalled that the force of the wind was so great that it tore out all the grass in his parents’ backyard. As his father pulled his dangerously exposed son away from the rattling glass, a nearby power line collapsed in a brilliant display of sparks. Speaking a few hours after the storm, Egan recounted that even with the 500-mile-an-hour wind, he “could hear that explosion on top of the tornado.” Bill and his family would survive unscathed, but his mother spent the next months feebly trying to revitalize their uprooted lawn.

Several blocks away, Minnie Jasinski, along with her husband and daughter, had just returned home after running a few errands.  Unaware of the impending danger, Minnie was surprised when she saw her spouse fleeing from the front door at full speed.  “All of a sudden, there was a swooshing sound,” the stay-at-home mom remembered.  “My husband knocked me to the ground and fell over our child.”  Awakening several minutes later, the family was amazed to find themselves sprawled out in the backyard, just a few feet from their leveled ranch house.

Although many residents where in the right place, at the right time, others were not so lucky to avoid bodily harm.

Little Debra Brenn, only nine years old, was in the coatroom of the Oak Lawn Roller Rink (located along Cicero Avenue) as the tornado began to slowly diminish in ferocity.  As the young girl untied her laces, all four walls, along with tons of concrete, collapsed onto the unprotected Brenn. In an amazing feat of courage, owner William Boyce arrived on scene moments after the catastrophe. “I got there and tried to help,” he told the Chicago Daily News on April 22.  “It was almost a half an hour before anyone else showed up.” Digging into the rubble when firefighters arrived, they discovered Debra and raced her to the Little Company of Mary Hospital in nearby Evergreen Park. Suffering from two broken legs and hips, she would spend the next six months bed-ridden from her near paralyzing injuries.

Sixteen minutes and after it had touched down, the storm blew out over lake Michigan, leaving 37 reported dead and more than 1,000 injured.

Mayor Fred Dumke expertly coordinated fire, police, and National Guard units as they slowly uncovered the human cost of the disaster. When volunteers removed part of the collapsed roof of the roller rink, they discovered the bodies of Debra’s friends, still clad in their skates. The emotional burden became so great for several rescuers, themselves fathers, that they could not continue with the work at hand.

One by one, each victim was carefully transported to the Johnson-Phelps VFW lodge decorated with pink streamers for a dance that was to have happened later that evening, where their bodies were eventually transferred to Christ Community Hospital’s morgue. During the first five days of recovery, the inside of the lodge, with its neat rows of cots and folded white sheets amid the pink streamers, was a somber reminder of the toll the storm had taken. During the night, members of various congregations held candlelight vigils outside for grieving families.

Within a few weeks, Oak Lawn’s heaping piles of rubble and overturned vehicles disappeared as hundreds of volunteers, many of them residents, pitched in and did what they could to help. Eventually, the village regained some sense of normal life, but never forgot the tireless efforts of good-hearted people assisting each other.

Reminiscing decades later with a reporter, former Mayor Dumke was asked about his role in bringing the city back together. Speaking candidly as he had throughout his public life, the wily politician’s remark perfectly captured the spirit and determination that drove residents to rebuild.

“What could I have done by myself? Nothing, that’s what,” Dumke said. “If I didn’t have those people around me, the aftermath would have been absolute chaos.”

Throughout the week Oak Lawn Patch will be observing the 44th anniversary of the devastating tornado of April 21, 1967, that not only put Oak Lawn on the map, it almost blew it off.