[Shotimes] OT - Ill Twister almost gets Four GTO's

[Donald Mallinson]

A good friend of mine got VERY lucky last night here in 
central Illinois.  As they were eating supper, they heard 
the wind kick up and sirens go off.  They decided to get to 
the basement.  They estimate they had no more than four (4) 
SECONDS after they got to an internal basement hallway than 
their house "popped" and stuff went flying.

They are OK, but a bedroom is mostly gone, room severely 
damaged.

Out side several trees are gone, a shed destroyed, a brand 
new horse trailer severely damaged and a tree went through a 
nice new (to them) used pickup, totalling it. Another older 
car outside was also totalled Their horses are all OK, this 
is a nice thing because last year at this time, they lost a 
prize horse to lightning.

My friend has four nice GTO's (64 convertible, 65,66 and 67 
hardtops) all in very good shape with tri-power (67 
converted for those that keep track of details). and they 
escaped without damage.

THey are a bit shook up.

A young friend of ours brought his family over from a 
neighboring town where they lived in a trailer park! They 
spent most of the evening in our basement. I had never seen 
two kids (about 12 years old) so shook up in my life.  One 
seemed in shock and the other was in a total panic.  They 
had heard sirens, then got a call from the father (our 
friend) who said pack up and get to the Mallinson's house 
NOW.  Drove about 10 miles in driving rain/wind (not really 
a wise choice in retrospect, but I didn't know they were 
doing this until they drove in the driveway with alert 
sirens going off in our town!).

Took an hour or two to calm them down with TV, popcorn and 
finally getting their parents calmed down.  Their trailer 
was OK we found out later.

Wild night, we had no damage and the family is fine, even my 
son Ken in Morton where two tornado's touched down and did 
damage.

I hope this spring is about over.

Don Mallinson