Editorial: Resolve, resourcefulness helping Fairdale rebuild after tornado
On April 9, 2015, a mile-wide wedge tornado ripped through Rochelle, crossed Route 72 and flattened most of the tiny burg of Fairdale as it went.
A year later, many signs of that twister remain. But like crocuses in spring, there is plenty of evidence of rebirth in Fairdale, which lies between DeKalb and Belvidere.
For a community of 150 people without so much as a mayor, a community whose devastation didn't qualify as a blip on FEMA's radar, it was going to take a lot of gumption and ingenuity to rebuild.
But rebuilding they are.
As Will Rogers declaimed, "The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you." The people of Fairdale have proved that.
From above, Fairdale looked like mullions on a window - three long streets and two cross streets. Homes on narrow, deep lots. That's it.
Because FEMA's threshold for aid is $18 million in damage and Fairdale sustained $11 million, the town was on its own. Questions remained about whether, because the town was built more than 130 years ago with no building or zoning codes to speak of, it could be resurrected economically. To figure that out, the DeKalb County Long‐Term Recovery Corp. was born a week and a half after the storm. Among its leaders is Bill Nicklas, a former mayor of DeKalb and neighboring Sycamore.
"I think everybody could identify; the destruction of a small town is a compelling story," he told staff writer Susan Sarkauskas. "Speed was important. Urgency was the order of the day."
The group worked with DeKalb County leaders and the Environmental Protection Agency to work around the building and zoning issues and provide a common area where septic lines could drain on farm land adjacent to the town. It was an inspiring coming together of people with problem-solving minds, big hearts and plenty of sweat to bring the town back.
"We were the pea under the mattress all summer and all fall and all winter," Nicklas said of the agency's relationship with the county. "We discovered a lot of good will."
To be sure, the tornado left plenty of scars.
Clem Schultz lost his wife and home in the tornado. He was upstairs collecting camping lanterns for him and Geri to weather the storm. He saw the rotating black cloud out his bedroom window and started shooting it on his cellphone.
He figured it was going to skirt Fairdale and in moments realized it was coming right at him. His video shows the storm uproot the house across the street before the screen goes blank. That's when he went down with the chimney. Geri didn't make it out of the house. Their neighbor died, too.
Clem has found another house to live in - outside of Fairdale.
He now better understands the unpredictability of tornadoes and takes solace in the knowledge that people who study weather are now studying his account of the storm.
For him and for so many others in Fairdale, the tornado of 2015 was about the worst that could happen. But it didn't get the best of this small town, and that's a big source of inspiration to the rest of us.