[1]MT. VERNON (BP) – Responding to a series of storms and tornadoes in recent weeks has scattered Illinois Disaster Relief personnel, with some getting hardly a moment’s rest before springing back into action.
“Blue Hat” Truman Sellers was relaxing in his recliner Sunday afternoon, June 21, in Mt. Vernon, a day removed from cleanup work he had joined in Charleston, when his wife went outside and told him to come out there.
“She said there was a funnel cloud. By the time I got there, it was already a tornado about 150 yards from my house,” Sellers told Baptist Press. “I could hear trees snapping, but we were getting no wind, no hail, no damage. I knew it was getting my neighbors, though.”
Sellers immediately jumped in his Dodge pickup and, since power lines blocked the road, plowed his own path through a bean field to the nearest home. He reached it to see a flipped-over camper and the house 10 feet off its foundation.
“They were really shook up,” he said of its residents. “I talked to them for about 30 minutes and told them I’d get ahold of the Red Cross and emergency services to send their way.”
That EF3, unfortunately, brought two fatalities when it hit a group of mobile homes and caused other structural damage. It was the third outbreak that required Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief (IBDR) teams to respond since an initial set of storms less than two weeks earlier.
[2]Teams deployed days after two EF3 tornadoes hit the communities of Streator and Washburn on June 11, reported [3] the Illinois Baptist newsjournal.
The regional outbreak included multiple strong tornadoes across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana, the National Weather Service confirmed, with EF3s hitting Washburn and Streator in Illinois. Kouts, Ind., also experienced an EF3, the strongest, with winds reaching 165 mph.
IBDR work began on June 15 but was suspended two days later as new storms moved through the area.
A line of severe thunderstorms reappeared on the morning of June 17 across the central part of the state, resulting in several tornadoes, damaging wind gusts of up to 80 mph, localized flash flooding and hail as large as three inches in diameter. It included an EF3 that bore its way 26 miles across northern Effingham County and its namesake county seat.
About 60 miles south/southwest and four days later, another EF3 tornado brought extensive damage near Mt. Vernon and the two fatalities in the village of Dix.
Glen Carty, interim director for Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief, told BP today (June 23) that his state has had its share of tornado activity in 2026.
[4]“Our report this morning said we’d experienced 196 tornadoes so far this year,” he said. “So, we’ve been kind of busy.”
Cleanup work in Streator, Washburn and Springfield has been completed, Carty added. Teams moved into Effingham County last weekend after the June 17 storms. Currently, Disaster Relief personnel are stationed in Charlestown, north of Effingham, and Mt. Vernon, responding to 66 cleanup jobs. More are being requested.
“We’ve got a couple of big jobs that will take maybe a week, but a lot of them are smaller,” said Carty, adding that he hoped cleanup could be completed by the end of next week. “Either way, they’re all necessary. So we’re working as hard as we can and hoping maybe the storm season is over around here.”
Forty volunteers are working in Charleston with Carty, while approximately 20 are in Mt. Vernon.
The Mt. Vernon team is based in that area and was scheduled to join the work in Charleston. No team members experienced damage to their homes, and they will remain nearby to help others.
“We’re cutting trees, cleaning up and praying with families,” said Sellers, who used his personal chainsaw Sunday night to clear driveways so people could get to work the next day. “We will continue to focus on three Hs – Helping people out, bringing them healing and giving them hope.”
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