A sound as of a rushing mighty wind

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Bro. Richard, spake:
Bro.Rich> Then, last Friday,
Bro.Rich> the Civil Defense sirens went off about 8:15 pm in Savoy, where
Bro.Rich> I cowered like a scared dog in the basement at a friend's house
Bro.Rich> on Church Road.  Willard Airport, located in Savoy, recorded
Bro.Rich> winds of 75 mph (120 km/h).  A tornado touched down in a
Bro.Rich> cornfield on Church Road at Race Street (incidentally, Church &
Bro.Rich> Race is where I hit a patch of ice last November and rolled my
Bro.Rich> truck).

I was in west-central Champaign when the sirens went off visiting some 
friends when we first heard the hail falling.  The hail was ranging from
about pea size --> marble size where we were at.  My boss, here at work had
golf ball size hail that actually punctured the vinyl siding on the west
side of his house and knocked a nearly year-old paint job from the neighbors
mail box as well as damaging the neighbors car.

We all took shelter in the center of the house in the hallway.  We got pillows,
blankets and hit the floor.  I requested a battery operated radio so we could
monitor the situation at hand.  We couldn't get anything on the AM band but
the FM band had several stations broadcasting the EBS signal and giving 
warnings to take cover when they received it.  My post in the friends house was
in the bathroom on the toilet (heh, heh, pretty good position to sit and run
the radio tuner up and down the scale listen to the progress of the tornadic
activity).  At 8:39pm winds at the UofI airport was clocked at 75 mph and the
funnel cloud was heading ENE towards Urbana at 40mph.  It touched down a mile
south of Urbana a few minutes later still heading towards residences and busni
(plural of business).  At 9:15pm the warning for Champaign-Urbana had expired.
We went outside and the skies immediately above us were crystal clear.  You
could see stars!  It was incredibly warm with most of the hail having melted
into the ground but it was still possible to scoop some up in your hand.

Bro.Rich> A few miles east of St Joseph, a tornado picked up a
Bro.Rich> sixteen-wheeler from the Interstate and threw it into the
Bro.Rich> cornfield by the village of Ogden, killing one of the occupants
Bro.Rich> for the only fatality of this particular storm.  The tornado
Bro.Rich> then ripped through Ogden.  An aerial photo of Ogden in
Bro.Rich> yesterday's newspaper shows complete devestation.  Scores of
Bro.Rich> residences and businesses are completely destroyed.

Turns out, the victim was sleeping in the sleeper compartment of the semi-
tractor trailer.  It was a husband and wife driving team.  He was driving 
and she was sleeping.  He was injured and had to go to the hospital.  She
was thrown from the sleeping compartment about 30 yards and was pronounced
dead in the field by the coroner.

Bro.Rich> My wife Sara knows a couple people in that town -- one of them
Bro.Rich> has "only" major damage to the home. Her neighbors roof is in
Bro.Rich> the backyard, and somebody's garage is slammed into the side of
Bro.Rich> her house.  The other person lost their home completely.

Report I heard today of Ogden is that 80 of the town is damaged.  The 
picture on the newspaper yesterday morning showed collapsed grain bins 
on their sides along with much other destruction.  A volunteer worker on
the radio today told about how those grain bins were made from a high-gauge
steel that their cutting torches couldn't cut through.  But to look at it,
it looks like crumpled aluminimum foil.

I heard that the storm system that went through is called a SUPER CELL.  From
what I understand, a SCell is a dangerous thunderstorm that had the energizer
bunny syndrome in the fact that it just keeps going and going and going.  Most
thunderstorms cells that spawn tornadoes, spawn just one tornado and then die.  Then
an adjacent thunderstorm cell gains energy and spawns it tornado, then it dies 
out.  And then another cell spawns a tornado and then dies.   A SCell had 
enough energy to continually spawn tornadoes and doesn't usually die quickly
for another cell to take it's destructive place.  Funnels are rated F0 through
F5.  F0 being real weak tornadoes and F5 being the max.  The tornadoes of
last friday were F2 and F3.  An F3 tornado has sustained winds of 150 - 200
mph (which is way higher than a level 5 hurricane at a max of 150 mph).  And a
F2 funnel maxes out at 150 mph (I've no idea what the minimum is, maybe 
100 mph?).

My pastors father, Bro. Bob E. Koonce, tells us of a time when they were
having a nursing home service in Tuscola on the west side when a tornado
was spotted out the picture window to the west across the rail road tracks.
Bro. Koonce went to the windown and rebuked the tornado in Jesus Name and
asked the Lord to lift the tornado up and destroy it.  The tornado continued
straight for the nursing home, when it knocked over a box car, ascended into
the clouds and disappeared.  The authorities couldn't find the funnel cloud
anywhere from that moment on.  It disappeared from their sight (which was the
measure of detection back then more than 30 years ago).

So, amidst all the storms, Jesus is still bigger, stronger, and isn't deafened
by the mighty winds of the weather.

Bro. Tyler