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CHARLESTON — Melaina Morrison and Rylee Shrader’s summer jobs transformed last week in the blink of an eye.
The two first-time lifeguards at Charleston’s Rotary Community Aquatic Center can now be better described as a cleanup crew, as they and their coworkers clean out pool gutters, power-wash the decks and remove debris from an EF-2 tornado that tore an almost-14-mile path of destruction through the northern part of the Mattoon-Charleston area on June 17.
“It’s definitely a lot different from what we thought we’d be doing,” Shrader said.
Morrison, 16, said when the tornado hit, she was away at church camp without access to her phone, so she didn’t see the damage until she got back.
Shrader, 19, said she was at home in Westfield, about 10 miles west of Charleston, and she her family watched the storm go around them.
Their boss, Charleston Parks and Recreation Director Diane Ratliff, said her home near the Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic site in nearby Lerna was similarly not really affected.
“My house was pretty mellow compared to here,” Ratliff said, but “coming into town that night, it was hard to find a road that wasn’t blocked by trees or debris to get to City Hall. All city officials met and started a game plan within 15 minutes after the storm left the area.”
Ratliff said when she got closer to the aquatic center, she noticed there were no umbrellas where there should be plenty and there was no direct access because of all the debris on the roads.
Ratliff, who has been director for five years and with the department for 25 years, said she’s never seen damage to this extent at any of the district’s facilities.
As a result, the regular summer pool season has been put on hold.
“Our staff have been extremely helpful,” she added.
She’s been trying to get lifeguards like Morrison and Shrader as many hours as possible doing cleanup and has been working with the city to make sure they are safe in the process. Each day, about 10 to 12 of the aquatic center’s staff of about 40 are on hand at the aquatic center and city parks.
At the aquatic center, that work included recovering most everything that had been on the decks and was blown into the pools, such as chairs and umbrellas, as well as draining the pools to remove all other debris, which included parts of the roofs of the center and the neighboring middle school.
All the pool umbrellas were eventually recovered; one was in the ground, one remained on the deck, and the others had been blown outside the fence.
Ratliff said they’re now waiting on engineering and insurance assessments on the damage. She said they can’t really move forward until that gets taken care of and hopes it will happen in the near future.
In the meantime, she said, she was contacted by officials at Mattoon’s Lytle Pool, who let her know that pass holders for the aquatic center could use their facility.
“The community has been wonderful,” Ratliff said. “Again, working with the entire city, we had a lot of community food drive-through donations. A lot of donations were accepted by the city. A lot of individual community members were just out in full force helping clean up, and they still are. The community has been wonderful.
“All in all, we’re very thankful as a community that no one was injured and that most homes in town are still habitable,” she added. “There were only a few that were not able to be lived in after this even with their damages. We’re very fortunate in that aspect.”
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Illinois is experiencing a record number of tornadoes this year. The National Weather Service reported that the line of storms that rolled through East Central Illinois on June 17 spawned at least seven of them.
The weather service classified the Charleston-Mattoon tornado as an EF-2, with peak wind speeds of 116 miles per hour, and said it touched down about 4 miles north of Mattoon and tracked southeast for 13.83 miles before lifting about 2 miles east of Charleston along Illinois 16.
A lot of cleanup remains, but the community is strong and united in its support to return to normal.
Charleston Deputy City Manager Steve Bennett said the city has transitioned from a response to recovery phase.
“Our primary focus is on the removal of storm-related tree and limb debris from public boulevards, a process that will require a significant amount of time and resources,” he said.
He added that in addition to the city’s public works crews and assistance from neighboring communities, the city has contracted with a debris-removal company that is using large grapple trucks to collect tree debris from roads and take it to the city’s Leaf and Limb Drop-Off Site west of the fairgrounds to be mulched.
He said the total amount of debris taken to the dropoff site so far is probably only about 30 percent of what still needs picked up.
“We have also received valuable personnel and equipment assistance from the cities of Mattoon, Effingham and Champaign, which has greatly enhanced our recovery efforts,” Bennett said.
The Coles County Emergency Management Agency is coordinating a community resource center to provide residents access to a variety of recovery-related services and assistance programs.
The city will continue to keep residents informed by regularly posting updates, resources and recovery information on its website and social media.
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Eastern Illinois University also has been part of the cleanup effort. University officials said the college “stands strong alongside our neighbors as we navigate the impact of the tornado and recent storms.”
“Luckily, impact to campus was largely limited to landscape loss and infrastructure strain, including fallen trees and limbs, temporary power and associated network outages,” said Josh Reinhart, public information coordinator with EIU.
EIU remained closed the day after the storm for safety and to assess damage to the campus, which also allowed it to act swiftly to help neighbors in need.
“EIU students and employees joined local and regional partners in mobilizing volunteers to assist with community recovery efforts,” Reinhart said, adding that its Doudna Fine Arts Center “became a food and relief supply-distribution hub for impacted residents thanks to donations from regional businesses and neighbors.”
EIU also organized volunteers to deliver essential food and supplies to displaced residents and is providing temporary housing for affected residents.
In addition, EIU’s athletic teams volunteered to clear limbs and debris across the community, and the university will continue to assist. Officials are coordinating with community partners, nonprofits and government agencies to create a disaster-relief resource center.
“The EIU community is incredibly proud of the resilience and dedication shown by our students, employees and neighbors, and we will continue to coordinate with city officials to navigate ongoing recovery efforts and to build an even stronger Charleston,” officials said.
