By John Jurgens
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BELVIDERE, Illinois (WREX) — April 21, 1967 is a day many who lived in the Belvidere area remember all too well when a violent F-4 tornado carved a destructive path through the City of Murals.
The tornado traveled almost 27 miles from near Cherry Valley to near Woodstock, killing 24 people, including 17 children, and injuring hundreds more, according to the National Weather Service.
A survey of the tornado says it touched down along the Winnebago and Boone County line near Cherry Valley just before 4 p.m., moving northeast with Belvidere directly in its path.
Dale Wirth had just gotten out of elementary school as the tornado approached, remembering the eerie sight of the skies churning and darkening overhead.
“I have two sisters and we were all three of us looking out the back window, watching this sky get blacker and blacker,” Wirth said in 2024.
“I said, ‘Mom, look at this funny looking cloud!’…First thing out of her mouth was ‘Oh my god, it’s the Wizard of Oz!’ I knew just what she was talking about and down the basement when we went. Then the world came apart.”
The tornado crossed Interstate 90 as it hit the now-Belvidere Assembly Plant. The National Weather Service says 300 newly constructed cars were destroyed as well as 100 employee cars.
It then crossed U.S. 20 as it hit Belvidere High School, just as students were being dismissed on the Friday afternoon. School buses that had already picked up elementary and middle school kids were waiting for the high schoolers as the tornado struck.
Sue Rodakowski was at Belvidere High School that afternoon. She spoke with 13 WREX in 2015 about what she remembered from that tragic day.
“They were searching for us for hours, my mom, there was a makeshift morgue in the gym,” Rodakowski said. “She went in there and there was a little boy there. And the only reason she knew it wasn’t my brother was because she put stretching socks on him that day and this little boy didn’t have stretching socks.”
According to the storm survey, twelve buses were rolled over, some picked up and thrown as if they were toys. Students were thrown from the buses in a nearby field. 13 of the 24 fatalities and an estimated 300 of the 500 injuries from the tornado occurred at the high school.
Nancy Hern was a survivor of the Belvidere tornado at Belvidere High School. She spoke to 13 WREX about what she saw that afternoon.
“My sister was on a bus, her bus had gotten picked up by a twister, rolled, I don’t know, several times,” Hern said in 2015. “The bus driver was deceased. I remember her saying they had to kick the windows out to try to get out of the bus.”
Today, the 1967 Belvidere Tornado remains the seventh-deadliest tornado disaster at a school in United States history.
127 homes in Belvidere were destroyed by the tornado, with hundreds more receiving some kind of damage. The Pacemaker Grocery Store and Highland Hospital were also severely damaged.
The tornado continued into McHenry County before lifting north of Woodstock, near the modern-day site of Woodstock North High School.
In 2007, Belvidere High School opened a memorial for the victims of the tragedy. The memorial features 25 rings forming the shape of a tornado. It recognizes the 24 lives lost and everyone impacted in the community.
The Belvidere tornado was not the only storm to cause damage in northern Illinois. An F-4 tornado struck Lake Zurich in Lake County, killing one person and injuring 100.
Another significant tornado touched down near Chicago later that afternoon. An F-4 tornado carved a path from Palos Hills all the way through far southern parts of the City of Chicago to the shore of Lake Michigan, producing the worst damage in the community of Oak Lawn. 33 people were killed in that disaster and an estimated 500 people were injured.
The National Weather Service, then the Weather Bureau, said that people who were at home had heard advanced warning of the tornado, but those who were not at home did not hear the warning, causing such a high death toll.
Since 1967, technology has advanced so far that anyone can be alerted to a Tornado Warning with their cell phone as well as already existing methods including television and radio. Make sure you always have multiple ways to receive watches and warnings should severe weather strike again.
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