Southern Illinoisan from Carbondale, Illinois • Page 3

Carbondale-Herrln-AAurphysboro-AAarlon SOUTHERN iLLINOISAN, FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1982 Page Three Marion tornado aftermath Disaster. session notes need to coordinate if a loan control system was utilized by General Telephone, enabling certain prioritized telephone services to call out when circuits were overloaded, but shutting off service to most residential The need for planning was apparent to Robert Duncan, chairman of the Williamson County Airport Authority. "What we need really is a city-wide emergency disaster plan," Oft By Dave DeWitte Of The Southern lllinoisan Better planning and coordination could have yielded a faster and more efficient response to the May 29 tornado which left 10 dead and 146 injured in Marion, participants in a disaster critique session at Marion Memorial Hospital indicated Thursday. While Marion city officials and outside disaster agencies who helped out in the tornado aftermath have generally expressed satisfaction with the overall disaster response, Thursday's session was called to take a tougher look at the problems which arose. "We feel we'll accomplish more here this afternoon if we stop patting ourselves on the back and look at some of the slight improvements we might hope to make," said Hospital Administrator Merle Aukamp.

Marion Memorial, which is still treating three tornado victims, may have been the most greatly involved in the hours immediately following the tornado. The hospital's medical staff treated more than 130 persons and suffered shortages of backup electrical power, water and ice. Au kamp said the hospital "needed better security assistance from the outset," and had difficulty communicating by radio. Jammed radio frequencies, difficulty in finding electric generators, and the lack of medical personnel to "triage" wounded tornado victims in the field by prioritizing their injuries and assigning them to different hospitals, were problems mentioned by several in the critique session. "Nobody knew where they wanted us," said Bob Motti, regional emergency medical services coordinator for the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Motti rushed to Marion with medical supplies and three trauma nurses in a helicopter immediately after the tornado. His assistance was turned down at two hospitals and one field location before he finally settled at one of the two shopping centers destroyed. "The frequencies were so jammed that I couldn't even get through," said Motti, who has emergency call letters, but even resorted to using his name in an attempt to communicate on a clear channel. Administrators of two hospitals prepared to accept disaster victims Memorial of Carbondale and Franklin Hospital expressed dismay that no patients were ever sent. Aukamp said a radio call for an ambulance to take patients to Carbondale was never answered.

"There didn't seem to be any coordination of where the patients were going," said George Maroney, administrator of Memorial Hospital of Carbondale. "We could have received 50 patients or none." He said the coordination with other hospitals is "something we're going to work on." Janet Berra of the Berra Ambulance Service based in Johnston City said she was able to reach Marion within minutes after the tornado hit, but when she got there, it was difficult to locate patients and routes that were open. "If there had been a doctor to do triage, we could've taken them to Carbondale," she said, referring to a group of patients she transported. Robert Walters, of the Veterans Administration Medical Center, said the center had only one radio frequency out of the hospital. It was jammed.

Dorain Fletcher, executive officer of the Greater Marion Area Chamber of Commerce, said maps to distribute to disaster assistance workers were scarce. Harold Mullins, the regional coordinator of the Illinois Emergency Service and Disaster Agency, said manpower was not in short supply, but organization was a problem. "The main problem we had was to get it together under one man or several men's supervision," he said, adding that the lack of an emergency power supply at the Illinois Regional Office Building hampered disaster officials. He said the communications problems could have been reduced 5 Inouest witness offers I J2rf Q-i J-n, Southern lllinoisan photo by JERRY LOWER attention to st Southern Illinois. The group is making it big now, with a popular new album and a recent successful tour through the South.

The band's performance Thursday was sponsored by the Carbondale Park District. Twisting the night away Big Twist and the Mellow Fellows rocked a crowd of a few thousand, which gathered Thursday evening in the courtyard in front of Shryock Auditorium at Southern Illinois University-Crbondale. Twist, whose real name is Larry Nolan, spent much of his early career playing at small clubs in Mt. Vernon station CarbondaSe man oets Duncan said. He said the plan should include such factors as mobilization of personnel, specific mobilization locations, communications channels, emergency power and emergency routing.

Mayor Robert Butler mentioned such a plan in his comments prior to Duncan's, but did not say if the city has intentions of implementing one at this time. "I don't think you can fully plan for a disaster," Butler said. "You may be able to set up some priorities." Butler explained his own priorities in the disaster, saying he first went to the police station, where an emergency generator had been installed, then to Marion Memorial Hospital where he helped arrange for the overflow of patients to go to the Veterans Administration Medical Center. He also visited the Central Illinois Public Service Co. to check on progress in restoring pow er to the hospitals and water plant.

"I thought everybody involved did admirably," Butler said. "You may have had more volunteer help than you could utilize." Several of the participants in the critique indicated they had conducted in-house critiques of their performance during the disaster-, and several commented on the need for a citywide disaster drill. Aukamp said the critique was arranged to meet an apparent need for communication about the dis-1 aster response in order to analyze A the community preparedness. He said the hospital is not in a position to coordinate the city's disaster planning effort, but is "hoping that somebody else would pick it up." advice: warnings ty detective who worked as a volunteer in a makeshift morgue at the Marion Junior High School said 10 bodies were received. "It was rather obvious that all had died from severe traumas," he said.

Wilson described his own experiences during the tornado, saying he was aware only of the train-like sound and the debris which slowly, floated down through the atmos phere in the tornado's wake. "It was just like the 20th Century had passed the Broadway Limited on a railroad trestle," he said. "They could just see this stuff floating down it was just -like animation." The six-man coroner's jury returned after brief deliberations with one verdict, which was to ap- pear on the certificates of death of" all 10 victims. The verdict found that they came to their deaths from "traumatic crushing injuries from the May 29, 1982, tornado." Those killed by the tornado were James Gulledge, 17, Route 1, Mar-, ion; Lynn Sue Moore, 18, 701 E. Monroe, Herrin; Brian Simmons; 11, Route 1, Johnston City; Selma Latham, 79, 903 E.

Boulevard, Marion; Effie Jane Wilson, 61, 109 N. 7th Marion; and Fern Kobler; 67, Mae Rader, 79, Leona White, 96, Helen White 62, and Pauline Pear-. son, 62, all of Shawnee Village Apartments. loss have made up the majority of the applicants. Even victims who were fully in-; sured may be eligible for loans to; tide them over until the insurance-claim is reimbursed.

An SBA loan application is a prerequisite to the Individual and Family Grant Program application. The program is designed to meet the needs of individuals, whose circumstances will not allow them to repay loans, even on the low-interest, extended-term basis the SBA provides. The SBA loan application is required to attest to the individual's need- for financial assistance beyond a loan, according to officials Davis said residents will have until 4:30 p.m. Aug. 4 to submit the SBA loan applications, with some exceptions due to individual circumstances.

The assistance center, housing 12 agencies, was scheduled to close at 6 p.m. today after serving about 1,200 individuals or applicants from two locations. lf ermit for TV channel orm nomenon to a whirlpool which may or may not form in the drain of a bath tub. A small gathering at the inquest also heard testimony from a Williamson County detective, two Marion Memorial Hospital nurses and one emergency medical technician, describing their experiences on the day of the tornado and their reactions to the handling of the disaster. Sheila Antonacci, a registered nurse who arrived at the Shawnee Village Apartments shortly after the tornado described "unbelievable chaos and devastation like I had never seen before and hope never to see again." But she described the rescue effort as "fantastic," adding that "the influx of qualified (medical) help was unbelievable." Seven persons were killed in the apartments.

"I think everything was done to the best of everybody's ability," said Arlene Counts, a registered nurse in the hospital's. emergency room. Joyce Funkhouser, an emergency medical technician who volunteered to help her former employer, Edward-Mayfield Ambulance Service, described the search for injured in an east side neighborhood, saying she was "impressed by the response of the people." Phil Ritchey, a Williamson Coun By Dave DeWitte Of The Southern lllinoisan There was little left undone by emergency and rescue officials which could have prevented the death of ten Marion tornado victims, according to testimony at a combined inquest before a Williamson County coroner's jury Thursday night. Five witnesses called by Coroner James Wilson offered no suggestions for plans which could have been followed to reduce the loss of life from the tornado which roared through Marion May 29. Tom Redickas, Emergency Services and Disaster Agency (ESDA) coordinator for Williamson County, testified the tornado and storm system which spawned it had been tracked for at least two hours before the funnel cloud touched down.

Asked for suggestions, Redickas could only caution residents to take tornado and severe-storm warnings more seriously. "Any thunderstorm can do what this one did here any one of them," Redickas said. "When we have to broadcast a severe storm watch, I often get the thought that people are thinking, 'here we go again." Redickas testified that coordi nated movement in the updraft at the forward edge of any storm system is all that is required to produce a tornado. He likened the phe elays in By H. B.

Koplowitz Of The Southern lllinoisan The former owner of WTAO-FM radio in Murphysboro has finally won approval from the Federal Communications Commission to construct a VHF-TV station in Mount Vernon. Bill Varecha said the FCC granted its approval for the station Thursday, fulfilling a seven-year effort by Varecha to achieve his dream of owning a TV station. The tentative call letters of the station are WBBW, and it will be a maximum power station with 316,000 watts, able to reach from Shelby County in the north to Union County in the south. The transmitter will be near Salem. Varecha said the licensee for the station will be Pyramid Broadcasting, of which he is 100 percent owner.

He said he has talked with the networks, but expects the station to be an independent with local programming, including regional news coverage. Varecha said the station should begin broadcasting in about nine months. In part because it was one of the Herrin landfill returning forms Library system grant to aid hIIZTi A special Southern Illinois history project will get under way soon when Shawnee Library System receives a $14,845 grant from the Illinois Humanities Council. Shawnee Library System Director James Ubel received notification of the grant award this week after an application was mailed in March. The grant, which provides funding for one year, will cover two facets of the project.

The first will be to create an inventory of all the local history and genealogy holdings in Southern Illinois libraries and in area historical and genealogical societies. The second part will be to hold a series of public programs designed to make persons more aware of the holdings of libraries and societies and encouraging use of and research with the materials. Shawnee Library System will furnish clerical assistance with the project but three persons who will head the project are Marion Mitchell of Carbondale, a well known local historian; David Koch, a Southern Illinois University-Carbdndale assistant professor who is in charge of the rare book room and special collections at Morris Library; and Richard Lawson, SIU-C assistant professor of English and author of several works on Southern Illinois history. Energy-saving L9an projects escape freeze SPRINGFIELD Energy conservation projects totaling $47,500 will be undertaken at John A. Logan Community College as a result of action announced Thursday by Gov.

James R. Thompson. The governor disclosed he had exempted those projects along with several others from a construction funding freeze he imposed because of the state's tight financial situation. Work at the college will include damper seals, implementation of various controls and replacement of lights and insulation, according to a news release issued by the governor's press office. slow disaster-aid processing last vacant VHF channels in the country, and the only one in Southern Illinois, Varecha's application had been heavily contested.

He first submitted an application to the FCC in early 1977. For awhile it looked as if another group, Evans Broadcasting of New York, which owns Channel 30 in St. Louis, might get the channel. But Evans had planned to use the channel to broadcast the same programs and Channel 30's request was turned down after a lengthy hearing process. Others, including Bill Burns of Carbondale and O.L.

Turner of Har-risburg, had contested Varecha's latest application, but Varecha said the FCC members voted unanimously to grant the application noting that any further delay would deprive service to the public. "We're commented Varecha today. "It's been a lot of hard work." Varecha and his wife, Debbie, sold their interest in WTAO radio last year to come up with the capital to finance the TV station. The family had been in Florida the last year, but recently returned to Carbondale when it learned the FCC was about to make a final decision. wins OK sued to build the site but does not legally allow dumping, according to Jay Evans, IEPA inspector at the regional office in Collinsville.

Evans said trash can legally be dumped only with an operating permit, but added that several other Southern Illinois landfills also lack operating permits. Herrin Mayor Donald Swinford credited City Superintendent J.C. Kirk with bringing the landfill up to standards and also Lawrence Lipe and Associates, the consulting engineers. In April, the city put some teeth in its enforcement laws concerning the landfill, including requiring all loads to be covered. from EPA after 14 years By Dave DeWitte Of The Southern lllinoisan A slow return rate on Small Business Administration (SBA) loan applications is producing a delay in the processing of certain forms of aid to tornado victims, according to the SBA branch manager in Marion.

Of nearly 400 SBA applications distributed, at the state-federal disaster assistance center during the past two weeks, only 64 completed forms had been returned Thursday. "We should have 100 to 150 (applications) back in from the number of people who have them out in the field," SBA Disaster Branch Manager Norm Davis said Thursday. Davis said only four business assistance applications had been returned out of 93 distributed. The re-. mainder were applications home loans.

The delay in returning forms not only prevents disaster victims from getting needed 'aid, but prevents them from receiving assistance un der the Individual and Family Grant Program as well, Davis said. Davis speculated that some prospective applicants may be delaying submittal of their applications in order to find out what their insurance adjustments will be and receive estimates from contractors for needed repairs. The information is not crucial to the application, however, he said. "They should bring their applications back in to us whether they've gotten their insurance or their contractor's estimate," Davis said. He said those who will not be eligible for SBA 'loans or grants can often be determined without the additional information and the information can be submitted later as an addition to the application.

The applications forms are "just normal, routine everyday questions," according to Davis," who said they generally, are easier to fill out than a commercial loan application. The assistance available covers a variety of needs and circumstances, according to Davis. Tornado victims who had insurance but were not covered for all their By Bonnie Marx Of The Southern lllinoisan The Herrin Municipal Landfill has been granted its first operating permit and is, for the first time, in compliance with Illinois Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Opened in 1968, the landfill has been a source of problems for the city for some time. In 1976, the Illinois attorney general filed suit, at the request of IEP asking the landfill be closed because of numerous Terms for a settlement were announced in March 1981, when it was announced the suit would be dropped once the landfill was issued an operating permit.

Until now, the landfill had only a developmental permit, which is is-.