Our house was mostly destroyed. Nearly all stayed with neighbors, relatives or friends.“The thing I remember most was the community coming together,” Dillon said. I think there was some of that in the Crystal Lake tornado as well. We drove home to find the devastation. Rae Goss was a strong supporter of youth. Then the pencil hit the [Crystal Lake] plaza.”McHenry County Deputy Sheriff Glen Roberts saw something different: “The sky turned a sickly olive-green color.”And a Woodstock Sentinel report noted that “one minute the day was the most beautiful and sunny of any early spring day. A short-wave radio center was quickly setup. Hardest hit was this community of 8,000 about 45 miles northwest of Chicago. Local historians chronicle path of 1965 Crystal Lake tornado on 50th anniversary. Pamela Cooper, a former resident now living in New York, was living at 7407 McHenry Ave. at the time. I had never heard Crystal Lake or any other town in the Northwest Suburbs in Lake, Cook, or McHenry Counties mentioned on Network TV. My grandfather had closed the basketball court the following weekend because of this. The funnel tore furiously through the Colby subdivision behind the plaza and then lifted momentarily back into the air. Floyd Kalber was doing the morning NBC 10 AM newscast. On Monday, several hundred Crystal Lake teenagers registered at the high school for cleanup work. “People had picked up his checks over there.” Dillon, who was tasked with finding temporary housing for the displaced, soon realized finding a suitable site for a temporary trailer park paled alongside the challenge of providing sewer and water.So when the Illinois Mobile Home Dealers Association stepped forward and delivered 95 trailers, they were taken to the individual lots. Richard and Rosalie Holter and their 20-year old son John perished in the storm. The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado decimated Colby’s Subdivision. The roof of the Neisner's Department Store at the Crystal Lake Plaza caved in during the April 11, 1965, Palm Sunday Tornado in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Our street was the first touch down in town. She wasn't their since it was Palm Sunday.
Then it slashed across East Crystal Lake Avenue and caused vast destruction in Orchard Acres subdivision on Route 31 before heading east toward Island Lake.”Rae Goss’s property was located near the corner of Virginia Road and Route 14 (near today’s Country Donuts). There was a pay phone in the hall but no phones in our rooms.) By 1 p.m., they were concerned enough to notify Chicago radio stations, who delivered a “severe weather warning” for the northern Illinois and northern Indiana.Back in 1965, emergency sirens were not purposed to give tornado warnings.
Today, those and additional sirens are available to give momentary emergency warning to take cover as storms bear down.Still, in many modern-day tornado situations, some survivors say they either did not hear any sirens or heard them only seconds before the tornado hit. I was going through the lounge where there was a black & white TV.
Palm Sunday in 1965 … We drove home to find the devastation. Children thought about going out and flying kites against the backdrop of pretty, puffy white clouds. Ray recalls being at home when the emergency siren went off. “Garbage cans and lawn chairs flew out of the clouds and landed on yards across the street.”Dillon, 86, of Crystal Lake, recalled seeing shocked people “walking around like zombies.” One man was taking a shower when the tornado ripped the roof off his house and left him standing naked in the tub. [I] will never forget the color of that sky!”What no one knew was that earlier that day a cold front slammed into the warm body of air coming up from the Gulf of Mexico.
I got most of the details from people when I got home that summer. On Sunday, April 11, 1965, a massive tornado ripped through Crystal Lake, killing five people, destroying or damaging hundreds of homes and businesses, and forever changing the lives of those who lived through this destructive event.April 11th — It was Palm Sunday, one week before Easter. These devices allow forecasters to increase the lead time for warnings, but they are not a panacea. “My dad, brothers and I saw the storm from the driving range at [Routes] 31 and 14.
Because of this outpouring of generosity, NO ONE had to spend the night in the high school gymnasium.When Chuck Aldridge, owner of The Pantry Restaurant learned of the tornado and could finally get through the traffic, he opened his downtown restaurant at 5:30 Palm Sunday evening and stayed open all night to serve the many workers and tornado victims. This was the first time I ever heard my hometown mentioned on a national news broadcast on radio or television. The community of citizens, public officials, emergency personnel, and more rallied to help those in need.Ray Rudden was on the Crystal Lake Police Department in 1965.