Naplate Residents Recover After Tornado Destroys Homes
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Residents in a small Illinois village are dealing with clean-up and discovering new damage after a tornado swept through the area.
CBS 2's Roseanne Tellez reports.
Matthew Rideout surveyed the damage at his house on 19th Avenue. He had to ride out the storm in his bathroom.
"I pushed my mom into the tub to save her life," he said.
Caitlynn Frandin said she was in town when she got the tornado warning a few days ago. She raced to her aunt and uncle's house to take cover in their basement.
"I took back roads, because if I would have taken the main roads I wouldn't have made it," she said.
Frandin made it back in the nick of time. Her cousin Cristina helped her clean up the destruction Thursday. They also removed precious family photos.
Red Cross workers fanned out in Naplate and checked in on residents possibly running on fumes.
"In the next coming days, the fatigue and the reality of what's going on will begin to set in, and at that point our mental health teams will be there to support them, not as a mental health issue but as a stress and fatigue issue," said Richard Aron of the Red Cross.
Some electrical contractors are working 18 hour shifts all over Naplate to restore power. However, some of them said they are turning the gas off because many homes are total losses.
"They're allowing us to come in today to start getting some of the tarping done, start getting some of the emergency work done, start dealing with the homeowners," said construction worker Dave Baumgardner
He also said his job involves some hand-holding because the tragedy is still fresh in people's minds.
"You have to have some compassion in this business. We're here to help," said Baumgardner.
