Bandits pitcher returns to tornado-damaged hometown

Kirsten Verdun isn't sure what to expect when she goes home to Coal City this holiday weekend.

“I think it is going to be a little bit shocking to see it,” the Chicago Bandits pitcher said. “It's going to be a little nerve-racking.”

Coal City, a village 60 miles southwest of Chicago, was ravished by an EF3 tornado on June 22. Since then, Verdun has been with her team and only had a chance to call family and check out pictures and videos on the Internet to gauge the magnitude of the damage caused by the tornado.

“You hear it hit a lot bigger of an area, there's a lot of houses that it hit, etc.,” Verdun said. “But really seeing the pictures, it was scary. You look at all that damage and you think how amazing it is that no one got seriously injured or there were no fatalities.”

The night of the storms, Verdun expected to have her parents in Rosemont to watch her and the Bandits take on the Dallas Charge. Before the game, however, Verdun got a phone call from home.

“My parents called me that night (and) said they weren't going to be able to make it to the game because the weather was supposed to be really bad,” Verdun said.

As the first-place Bandits picked up a win, the tornado ripped apart much of Coal City. After the game, Verdun picked up her phone and saw messages from all over social media directed at her.

“I saw someone tweeted at me 'We're praying for your hometown,'” Verdun said. “I didn't know anything happened until after the game.”

Verdun quickly called her dad, Brad, to find out what happened. Verdun's dad gave her a rundown of what occurred; the tornado hit Coal City, but her family was safe, and no fatalities among the 5,000 residents of Coal City were reported.

“It was definitely a relief that my family was OK,” Verdun said. “It was definitely a relief that, as far as anyone knew, there weren't any fatalities. For the population that it hit, I think that we were very lucky.”

However, after her conversation with her father, Verdun still wasn't at ease.

“Honestly after I heard that it happened, after the game, I felt so helpless because I'm not there,” Verdun said. “That's my hometown, that's where I grew up. I feel like, coming from a very small town like that, you kind of feel like a sense of closeness even to the people you don't personally know.

“I know that was tough. That was hard.”

The tornado was the second to hit Coal City in the last two years. In November 2013, an EF2 tornado damaged Coal City and other areas of Central Illinois. Verdun was away from home during that tornado too, wrapping up her senior year at DePaul.

Verdun believes that just like in 2013, Coal City can bounce back from the damage the tornado caused.

“It sounds so cliché, but I know as a small town from countless instances of good or bad things that have happened that Coal City … we're going to stick together,” Verdun said. “Everyone just needs to band together and be strong and be there for one another. I'll do it from a distance and I'll be there whenever I can.

“We know we can get through it, we've done it before.”