Dear Tom,
What was the deadliest tornado ever to hit Illinois?
Pat Beranek, Downers Grove
Dear Pat,
Illinois' deadliest tornado and this nation's deadliest are one in the same; the Tri-State
Tornado of March 18, 1925. That storm took a record 695 lives with 613 of the deaths
occurring in Illinois, as it cut a continuous 219-mile-long path of F4-F5 destruction
from southeast Missouri to southwest Indiana. The town of Murphysboro, in Downstate
Illinois, suffered 234 of the fatalities, the most ever in a single community.
The storm began around 1 p.m. near Ellington in southeast Missouri and dissipated 3.5
hours later near Petersburg in southwest Indiana. The twister's average speed was 62
m.p.h. and at one point reached a record 73 m.p.h. between Gorham and Murphysboro
as it sped across southern Illinois.
