Residents were in shock as they picked up the pieces of their livelihoods and homes after a tornado tore through Effingham County Wednesday evening.
The path of the tornado appeared to travel along the northern edge of the county, with wind damage reported in Beecher City and Shumway on the north side of the city of Effingham, then swooping southeast to north of Teutopolis before ending between Dieterich and Montrose.
In that path were residents living along the west end of 1800th Avenue, about 3 miles northwest of Walmart.
Tim Koester was driving down that road to his home when he spotted it coming right next to his house.
“By the time I pulled in my driveway, there was leaves and debris (blowing around),” he said.
People reaching out to him the next morning had one question: How bad is it?
“I said, ‘Have you ever seen the movie ‘Twister’? There you go,’” he said.
However, Koester was the fortunate one in the neighborhood. He didn’t get much damage except for some trees in his shed.
His brother and sister-in-law, Todd and Diane Koester, who live down the road, weren’t as fortunate. The couple had their barn, machine shed, two grain bins, livestock shed, separate two-car garage, portable building, and modular building with a two-car garage, all reduced to rubble. Their three tractors, two pickup trucks and a racing mud truck, along with all their tools, also were destroyed. Not to mention, their camper was flipped over.
The couple received no warning. Todd and their little dog were on the golf cart when they saw the tornado coming.
“I could see it. It looked like a huge funnel, but there was no bottom on it. Couldn’t see the bottom,” he said. “So I come back around the house on the golf cart and told my wife, I said, ‘Come on, let’s go. Look at this funnel cloud.’ Well, she got up, put her shoes on. I was outside on that patio and I seen a big wall coming across that bottom over there.”
By that time, he said, “Never mind, it’s here.” Todd barely got inside when they heard the door fly off and the window shatter.
“I come through the kitchen. I rounded the corner, and then boom, it blew that big picture window in. So I took off again, and I went through the bedroom. Boom, it blew the bedroom window in. So I kept on going, got to the bathroom, and that’s where we hung out, back in that corner,” he said. The house doesn’t have basement.
The tornado blew the roof off one of the rooms they weren’t in. The couple was mostly unscathed, except for Diane, who was hit by some glass.
Their Clydesdale horse and two yearling calves did survive. However, they don’t know where their other three calves and 17 cows are.
The help they have received, Diane said, has been amazing. From picking up sticks to running equipment, people were busy cleaning up property all along the road.
“I can’t believe it,” she said.
The couple stayed in a hotel Wednesday night. Their home is currently without power after the tornado knocked down the utility pole that supplied it.
“I’ve been trying to hold it back since last night,” Todd said of his emotions. “You just don’t know what to do. Where do you start?”
Next door, the home they rented to Trevor Kreke was gone. Kreke was in the living room when the home was hit.
“As soon as I realized it was getting serious, I got out my phone to record a video to send to my friend, and then it got super intense, everything went black, and I felt like I was off the ground with no control of movement or surroundings,” he said. “It was definitely traumatic being inside a storm like that with nothing but darkness, no control and tons of pressure.”
Kreke said he began yelling out loud, “Jesus protect me,” before he looked up and saw light peering through the stubble of the destroyed house over his head.
“There was a piece of the house propped up on my washing machine right over my head that made a perfect tiny shelter and kept me safe. Then, I sat there to make sure the storm was over, in complete shock of what just happened and started checking my body for any damage only to find a few cuts and bruises,” he said.
Kreke said he’s still trying to process what happened.
“God saved my life last night, and now my plans are to continue seeking to glorify God in everything I do,” he said.
Kreke said his family, church, and entire community of Effingham and surrounding areas have shown an overwhelming amount of love and support.
“I truly feel so blessed,” he said.
At the end of the road, backhoes were also busy clearing debris, and people were carrying boxes to Dan and Cindy Bloemer’s home to pack up stuff in the house. Friends and neighbors from the Green Creek community came to the couple’s aid with food and water as well.
“That’s the way the community is,” said Cindy.
The two were watching the news on Wednesday evening. They were aware of the tornado threat after receiving warnings at 7:50, but they didn’t panic.
“How many times don’t we get warnings and it never happens?” said Cindy. “You just never dream of it happening to you.”
When they got to the bottom of the stairs in their basement, they heard things popping and cracking.
“I just thought it was a bad windstorm coming through,” she recalled.
After a few minutes, they made their way up the steps and began to see the damage.
All the windows except one were busted out, and the interior of the east side of their home was exposed after the wall was ripped away. Six barns filled with farm equipment, hay bales and cattle were leveled. However, they were able to recover most of their 50-60 cows that had gotten loose.
Even after surveying the damage, Cindy is still in shock.
“I still don’t believe it,” she said.
At the northeast end of Teutopolis, the Meyer family was grappling with the destruction of their dairy farm that has been in the family for over a century.
“We’ve got so much food. We got so much water,” said Rhonda Meyer, wife of Jon Meyer, who is the fourth generation to manage the farm along with his brother, Denny, on Thursday, after many came to their aid.
At about 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Rhonda Meyer headed to the basement and heard the tornado coming like a freight train.
“Just like they say. You can just hear the pinging of stuff on the side of the house. Even though we were in the basement with the door shut, you still could hear it,” she said.
After only 5 minutes, she and her family emerged from the basement to see the devastation caused by the tornado.
“We were beside ourselves,” she said. “Can’t even come up with words to say. Other than, oh my God, what do we do?”
People immediately began showing up. She estimates they came with 15 trailers to help haul the hundreds of cattle out, several of which were injured, and left without barns. They were moved to six or seven different farms where people volunteered to take the animals and milk them.
“We had one cow that actually had a baby calf as everything was going on. And they took that calf, and they’re feeding it,” she said.
“Our community is one of the best communities,” she added, choking up.
The Meyers lost five barns, harvesters and the milking parlor roof. Silos also were damaged. While the centennial farmhouse sustained some damage and power lines were down around it, it was still standing.
Thursday morning, cattle were still being moved as vehicles lined the road to their farm to fix bent-over power lines, repair damage, and clean up other properties. They still didn’t know if they had gotten all their cows that were scattered everywhere, including in town.
As they continued cleaning up, Rhonda said they had no idea about the farm’s future.
“It’s gonna be very hard to come back from,” she said.