American Notes ILLINOIS

Without warning, violent winds up to 300 m.p.h. twisted out of the northern Illinois sky last week, vented their fury in a 16-mile-long path, then vanished. Sister Mary Keenan, principal of St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Grade School in Plainfield, was swept away from a group of teachers seeking safety in the school and was killed. Nine residents of the town of Crest Hill died $ when they were sucked from their three-story apartment complex and hurled 40 ft. away into a cornfield. In the tornado's swath across Joliet and neighboring small towns, at least 27 people died and more than 90 others were injured. Damage wrought by gusts powerful enough to toss dumpsters into trees was placed at more than $100 million.

After the shock of loss, questions arose over the lack of warning from the National Weather Service's radar and its volunteer spotter network. "We feel there should have been some warning," said Will County Executive Charles Adelman with grim understatement. Explained NWS's Chicago meteorologist Paul Dailey: "The radar did not indicate any kind of rotation, hook or comma- shaped signal on the edge of the cloud. All we needed was one person to call us, but we didn't get a single report." The Weather Service's Washington supervisors were sending a team to find out why the killer storm's stealthy approach had not been detected.