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Latest Update: A Producer from the series "It Could Happen Tomorrow" contacted Marypat to do a segment on "What if an F5 Tornado hit the City of Chicago?" We taped in the summer of 2006 and it has ran numerous times. This new series from The Weather Channel, takes a close look at unbelievable acts of nature that, if they occur, could spell disaster in cities across America. The Storm Stories segment from the Spring of 2005 can be seen here.

Marypat's Tornado:

I have to admit that I knew nothing about tornadoes before the Plainfield Tornado ravaged our town.  I ignored what I now recognize are signs.  At the time, we had four sons: Austin 6 weeks old (although born a month premature), Chase 2, Clayton 4 and Nicholas 5 1/2.  The children were all down for their afternoon naps.  For the previous 6 weeks, I had been laying down for a nap as well, but today I decided to stay awake and catch up on household chores and bills.  It was a terribly hot and humid afternoon.  About 3 pm so, it began to hail.  My next-door neighbor called and asked if I was aware of any severe weather reports.  While we were talking, the phones went dead.  The sound of hail woke up the 2 oldest boys who began to cry and asked me why it was so dark and loud outside.  I brought them to the front door and showed them the hail.  I viewed this as a learning experience - - - kind of like a science lesson - - and an opportunity to teach them about hail.  I explained what hail was and assured them it could not hurt them.  I didn't realize we were in any danger.  I told the boys they didn't need to cry; they had to be quiet so they wouldn't wake up the other 2 children. 

As we stood by the front door, the trees began to twist and the skies turned a pea soup green.  I thought we were in for a bad storm, little did I know. 

Six-week old Austin's crib was in my bedroom next to a bank of windows near some large trees.  I was concerned that a branch might swing too far and hit a window.  I told the 2 older boys, Nicholas and Clayton, to stay where they were and not to move.  I ran down the hall into my room and scooped Austin out of his crib.  I turned to leave my bedroom so I could return to the older boys because they were so scared, but the only thing I clearly remember is the sound of shattering glass - - massive amounts of shattering glass.  I opened my eyes and was 22 feet away from where I had been a second ago.  I have no memory of how I got there.  I looked up and saw the home of the neighbor who lived across the street instead of the bedroom door where my 2-year old son's bedroom should have been.  My 6-week old son's eyes, nose and mouth were sealed shut with insulation.  We were in the midst of destruction with nowhere to move, so I used my tongue and mouth - - - the only source of liquid - - - to get the insulation out of Austin.  I began to nurse him to clear his breathing passages.  When I was sure he was breathing, I looked around.  I imagine I was in shock.  As the realization hit me that I didn't know where my other 3 children were, I heard my 2 oldest boys screaming.  We yelled back and forth and their voices get closer and closer.  Suddenly, the boys came scrambling out of a pile of debris - - the remains of my home.  By the time they reached me, they were hysterical.  My oldest son, Nicholas, kept screaming, "Where's Chase, where's Chase???!!!”  I tried to calm Nicholas and Clayton because I needed Nicholas to be calm enough to securely hold a 7-pound baby while I dug through the remains of their brother's room to find him.  I climbed into the area where Chase's room USED to be, began pushing and pulling away debris to find my 2-year old son, Chase.  His head popped up through a opening that a shattered window had left behind - - the wall had fallen over him in such a fashion that it landed over his sleeping body in the PERFECT position to keep him from being crushed ... He was okay, but sucking on his little pacifier furiously.... eyes wide....  I carried him back over the debris - - about 12-feet away from where his brothers were.  We all huddled together.  We couldn't get off the property because of the seriousness of the damage.  We sat there, huddled together and stuck in our home.  The boys were all crying and I was in simply in shock.  The rain began again and there was a powerful smell of gas . . . I pulled a blanket I found in a pile of debris next to us over our heads and the kids and I started to say their bedtime prayers; I was absolutely convinced the tornado was returning and we were going to die.

As we prayed, I could hear our teenage neighbor, Derrick Beggs, yelling for us.  He was trying to find us and was yelling that we had to get out off the property because of the smell of gas.  I yelled to him that we couldn't get out without help.  He climbed through the wreckage and helped take my sons out - - - one by one.  I climbed over the debris with Austin.  We walked up the street and never looked back.  It was not until much later that day that we walked back and saw the total destruction.

We went to the doctor and were told that 6-week old Austin had cuts on his eyes from the insulation and my back was black and blue....  I could not even recall getting hit with anything and we speculated that the dresser that was over me in the hallway was thrown with Austin and I when the tornado hit the house.  Afterwards we went to a relative's house and stayed until insurance was able to move us into a temporary home of our own.  We needed to purchase everything you could imagine ... clothing, shoes, socks, toothbrushes ... The insurance company moved us into a hotel for about 4 weeks and then into a rental home until we rebuilt our home.  We were able to move into our new home about 9 months after the tornado.

It took our oldest son, Nicholas, about 5 years to stop being afraid when there was bad weather.  We had a family bed for months after the tornado, as well.  Clayton, the 4 year old, would gather all of his toys for years and drag them into the crawlspace if there was bad weather.  His birthday was 3 weeks before the tornado changed our lives - - - and he lost all his gifts - - that fear of loosing all his "things" stayed with him for years.  As for me, to this day I will get up in the middle of the night, get dressed, and put my purse next to the bed if there is bad weather outside - - or, we will move into the crawlspace.

I have a tendency to get very sad feelings when I hear about tragedy anywhere in the world.  I get a crushing feeling in my chest because I KNOW how the people involved must feel.  To this very day, I have to text or call my children (soon to be Nicholas 26, Clayton 24, Chase 22, Austin 20 and Alexis 16) if the sky looks bad or I hear a weather report that is threatening.  A simple message: "eyes to the sky" is the warning I deliver.  They will call or text me with the same message if they don't hear from me first.

I spent many, many years jumping into the car if the weather got bad.  I would go get my children from their school, a dentist appointment, the park, religious education class, anywhere - - I couldn't seem to let go of the feeling that if ANYTHING were going to happen to any of us, we were going to be together.  When the USA was attacked on 911, I became so overwhelmed with separation anxiety that when the 2nd plane went "missing", I drove to each of my children's schools and took them out of school to be at home with me.  I felt incredibly sad during the month following 911.  It brought back so many thoughts of "what-if"... 

I found that the experience we lived through has made my children and I incredibly close.  For years when the kids were younger, we were known as the family home that all the friends seemed to gravitate to.  There was not a single weekend that we didn't have "the cast of thousands" spend the night- - the beauty of having the children so close in age was that they were one another's friends - - - but additionally, all their friends became this wonderful group of friends with so much in common.  For a long time, our kids preferred to have their friends at our home rather than stay at friend's homes.  The only member of our family that has never dealt with these feelings is our 16-year old daughter, Alexis.

Today, we have two children who live in California and instead of tornadoes, they deal with earthquakes - - one son gets anxious and the other more curious.  The members of our family were all touched by the tornado and deal with "weather issues" in different ways. Some cope better than others.

1. In 2005, The Weather Channel did a segment on our personal story for their Storm Stories Series.  Over the past 5 years or so, they replay it on a regular cycle.  The press release: http://press.weather.com/press_archive_detail.asp?id=88.  Photos from the taping of the show can be seen here: http://mgabor.com/storm_stories/index.html
2. This is a link to our personal tornado photos http://www.mgabor.com/1990_Plainfield_Tornado/index.html
3. An Interview of our family soon after the tornado can be seen here:  http://www.mgabor.com/media/plainfield_tornado_interview.wmv
4. I also have personal videos from a drive through the neighborhood the day after the tornado struck.

The one lesson I have learned through all this - - - is that Life Is Short.  Family is SO important - - - you must live each day with no regrets.

~ Marypat Gabor

www.mgabor.com/tornado.htm

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Chase Clips at: www.theberrics.com
Proud Mother of a United States Marine!

 This picture was taken 2 weeks before the tornado in August of 1990.

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Our Story from The Enterprise Newspaper....Under Here....     
View Photos from the tornado here.

Marypat Gabor had just enough time to scoop up her 6-week-old son Austin before the windows blew in on his crib and she and the baby were thrown 22 feet to land in the only hall left standing in their home. "I opened my eyes and the walls were gone," she said. Her other three children, Nick, 5, Clayton, 4 and Chase, 2, were nowhere to be seen. "There was a period of time, except for the baby I had in my arms, that I believed they were all dead," Gabor said.  But, she found the three boys uninjured. Nick and Clayton were huddling under a painting of the Last Supper. By digging around, Chase, who had been napping, was found lying under a fallen wall in the rectangular space where a window had been. By now, rain and hail were pouring down and Gabor could smell gas. She knew she could not maneuver with four small children over the scraps of wood and metal to safety. "I just pulled the blanket over our heads and we started to pray," Gabor said. "I thought, if we're going to die, then we're all going to die together." It was then that the high school age neighbor, Derrick Beggs, came to the rescue, carrying them one by one out to the street. The families at the end of the cul du sac, those whose houses were not as badly damaged, took them, cleaned them up and gave them dry clothing to wear. For the next nine months, the Gabor family lived in a rented house in Lisle while Terry Gabor designed and rebuilt their home in Lily Cache. The new house included a cemented area in the crawl space, a storm shelter.

Marypat and the children attended months of counseling sessions to ease their fears of storms and calm anxieties about being separated from one another.

The youngest Gabor child, Alexis, 6, wasn't born when the tornado hit; but she knows the stories and has seen the pictures. Her brothers, even Nick, the oldest, remember very little. But the family has been drawn closer because of the experience, preferring to stay close to home, Marypat said.  Looking back, the family's survival seems a miracle, Marypat believes. "Some people have asked me, with all that has happened, "How can you believe in God?' Gabor said. "I say, how can you not?"

 

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