UPDATE 4:51am Monday: Report 6 Die as Tornadoes Pummel Midwest :TORNADOES SWEEP THROUGH ILLINOIS: 3 KILLED IN MIDWEST

Written by Rick Stambaugh of FGGAM News
Extremely intense thunderstorms and tornadoes swept through parts of 12 states Sunday, killing six people in Illinois and leveling neighborhoods across the Midwest. The central Illinois community of Washington, about 140 miles southwest of Chicago, appeared particularly hard-hit. State Troopers told the Associated Press that the tornado cut a path about an eighth of a mile wide from one side of town to the other. Neighborhoods are completely wiped out and subdivisions of twenty to thirty homes are just gone! There are reports that the entire town of Washington is devastated. Calls for physicians and nurses from surrounding areas are being put out after a tornado swept through the town midday.
I know Pastor Dewey of FGGAM has a son, Lars, who is presently attending school in Chicago, but the Pastor has reported Sunday evening that his son is apparently OK following the storm for which we are greatly thankful!Firefighters were going house to house in Washington Sunday night to look for people who may be trapped. The Illinois National Guard is also dispatching 10 firefighters to Washington to search for survivors. Several blocks of houses had been erased from the landscape in the rural community of 16,000. As law enforcement officers continued to search for victims and sized up the cleanup and rebuilding job ahead, they kept everyone but residents and emergency workers out. With power off and lines down in many areas, natural gas lines leaking and trees and other debris blocking many streets, an overnight curfew kept all but emergency vehicles off pitch-black roads. The only lights visible across most of Washington on Sunday night were red and blue flashes from police and fire truck lights.”My daughter was already in the basement, so I ran downstairs and grabbed her, crouched in the laundry room and all of a sudden I could see daylight up the stairway and my house was gone,” Michael Perdun, a Washington resident, said Sunday afternoon in an interview with The Associated Press on his cellphone. “The whole neighborhood’s gone. The wall of my fireplace is all that is left of my house.” Candi Cross, the mayor of New Minden, reported that residents in the town are volunteering to take in others whose homes have been damaged. “Everybody has a place to go to tonight,” she said. This morning, a tornado that hit New Minden was possibly as large as an EF4.

Earlier in the day, the county coroner in Washington County in southern Illinois said that an elderly man and his sister died when a tornado struck their farm house in the town of New Minden, about 50 miles southeast of St. Louis. A third person died in Washington, while three others perished in Massac County in the far southern part of the state, according to Patti Thompson of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. She did not provide details.

At OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, spokeswoman Amy Paul said 37 patients had been treated, eight with injuries ranging from broken bones to head injuries that were serious enough to be admitted. Another hospital, Methodist Medical Center in Peoria, treated more than a dozen, but officials there said none of them were seriously injured. With communications difficult and many roads impassable, it remained unclear how many people might be hurt or whether the death toll would continue to climb. The wave of thunderstorms that brought the damaging wind and tornadoes affected 12 states in all: Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and western New York.

Just how many tornadoes hit was unclear Sunday afternoon. According to the National Weather Services’ website, a total of 65 tornadoes had struck, the bulk of them in Illinois. But meteorologist Matt Friedlein said the total might fall because emergency workers, tornado spotters and others often report the same tornado. Early Monday morning, The Weather Channel is reporting an estimated 40 twisters but again, this number will fluctuate as more reporting is confirmed.

In Chicago, storms raced through the downtown area so powerfully that the rain was not falling as much as it was slamming into the sides of buildings. There were no confirmed reports of injuries. Heavy rain, high winds, and lightning delayed the NFL game between the Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens for around two hours while fans evacuated the stands.

Weather service officials confirmed that a tornado touched down just before 11 a.m. near the central Illinois community of East Peoria, but authorities did not immediately have damage or injury reports. Within an hour, the weather service said that tornadoes had touched down in Washington, Metamora, Morton and other central communities, though officials could not say whether it was one tornado touching down or several. Weather officials said it was moving northeast about 60 mph; East Peoria is about 150 miles southwest of Chicago.

In McHenry County, northwest of Chicago, funnel clouds were spotted late Sunday morning, dropping out of the clouds and then retreating again, said Bob Ellsworth, the assistant director of the county’s emergency management agency. Ellsworth added that none had touched the ground or caused any damage.

This morning, the Weather Channel is reporting that while the tornadoes have stopped, today they are expecting a cold front to be dropping down out of Canada which will be dropping temperatures and causing more heavy winds and ‘lake effect snow’ coming off the Great Lakes but do not expect the same conditions which caused the tornadoes on Sunday.

The White House says it will continue to stay in touch with federal partners, including FEMA, as well as the state and local partners in the impacted states.

As in all initial reports during such a disaster, it must be remembered, exact numbers of how many tornadoes and the extent of death and injuries always fluctuate greatly due to the urgent nature of the situation and many times there is repeated reporting of the same information by different organizations or witnesses.

We must all pray over this situation and that GOD provide guidance to the emergency personnel trying to help these people.