A MIGHTY WIND The tornadoes that raked Springfield from one
end to the other late Sunday and early Monday wrecked dozens of
homes and businesses, stranded hundreds of theater patrons at
Kerasotes, left thousands of residents without power in the cold,
and decapitated Paul Bunyan at Lauterbach Tire. For more than 13 hours, WMAY
(970 AM) news director and all-around broadcast stud Jim Leach was on the
air, providing for most residents the only constant source of
information about the bad weather. It was a bravura performance,
especially when you consider that the man did it without the
benefit of anything to drink. (And here we can’t write a
sentence without a cup o’ joe.) By daybreak, of course, Leach
was sounding punchy, warning folks not to gawk, rubberneck, or
gridlock. Still, he was doing better than one of the WICS (Channel
20) reporters, who, from a live remote, broke the news that the
birds were singing and the sun was “officially” on its
way up. Can’t slip anything past a TV reporter . . .
The first tornado hit areas on the west side
of town, including the Parkway Pointe commercial center, but
residential areas on the east side, including the Bunn Park
neighborhood, were also were slammed. The irony wasn’t lost
on neighborhood-association president Jamie
Adair: He’s spent four years
trying to score a pair of measly stop signs from the city, but Bunn
Park now needs a lot more than street signs. Adair, who’s been
critical in the past of the city’s public-works response to
the predominantly black neighborhoods on Springfield’s east
side, reports that crews are working as hard as they can to clean
up the area: “I expect them to deal with it when they can;
I’m not an unrealistic person.” He just hopes that it
doesn’t take ’em another four years.
Capt. Sonja
Gurski, spokeswoman for the 183rd Fighter Wing of the Illinois National
Guard, was on her way to work on the morning after when she heard some
very unwelcome news on a news radio broadcast: An F-16 fighter had
flipped over at Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport. At least the State Journal-Register got
the story right: Rumors that an F-16 had crashed at the airport were
not true, the newspaper reported in early editions. “You’re
the first media call I’ve had to confirm or deny either
way,” Gurski told us on Tuesday. For the record, she denies that
any aircraft flipped, crashed or otherwise sustained damage. “We
consider ourselves lucky,” Gurski says. It just goes to show: The
Springfield rumor mill keeps running amok, even when we’re all
hiding under tables in our basements. This just in: The tornadoes were
not part of an ongoing cocaine-ring investigation.
HOT AIR In recent weeks the city passed its budget,
the Springfield and Sangamon County health departments finally
merged, the Salvation Army’s relocation plan was quashed, and
a smoking ban was approved. For the most part, though, all’s
quiet at 300 S. Seventh St. — ’cept for the business
that’s transacted behind closed doors. That was the case last
week at City Council, where the highlight of the regular meeting
was an appearance by the St. Andrews
Society, a group that preserves Celtic
traditions in central Illinois. On hand to receive a proclamation
from Mayor Tim Davlin, the group gave a brief bagpipe-and-drum
performance, which city leaders seemed to enjoy, with the possible
exception of Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney, who looked none too pleased about the bass drum
being pounded behind his head. Instead of the usual hot air that
emanates from council chambers, the bagpipers, WUIS (91.9 FM)
reporter Kavitha Cardoza later quipped, provided “hot air of a
different sort.”
ACTING ON ACTON The editor of the Daily Illini, the student
newspaper of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was
fired on Monday. Acton Gorton, 25, had been suspended from the job for a month
after deciding to republish controversial Danish cartoons that
depicted the Prophet Muhammad without consulting the editorial staff [see
Fletcher Farrar, “Cartoons and clashing cultures at the Daily Illini,”
March 2]. In a statement released Tuesday by the board of directors
for Illini Media Company, “Gorton violated Daily Illini policies about
thoughtful discussion of and preparation for the publication of
inflammatory material.” The board’s vote was unanimous.
Gorton says he wasn’t surprised by the decision. “I
knew I was going to be fired,” Gorton says. “It’s
a lot easier to replace one person instead of an entire
staff.” At the same time, Gorton says he thought the outcome
would be different after he explained his position, Gorton says.
Opinions editor Chuck Prochaska, who was also suspended, was reinstated; however,
Prochaska decided to quit, citing personal reasons. — From staff reports
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2006.
