2 weeks Ago By ROB STROUD [email protected]
Coles County Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Hilgenberg said the sight of debris from these and other structures being picked up and carried across a path less than 100 yards wide indicated that a tornado had touched down Friday evening. "I personally feel it was a tornado down here. That's what it looks like," Hilgenberg said.
It was the same one that hit the Neoga school and came up this way." Hilgenberg later said his suspicions were confirmed when he spoke with National Weather Service representatives in Coles County. He said, "They are telling me it was definitely a tornado that touched down south of Neoga and it was on the ground the entire way through here.
" Friday evening's tornado started its northeastern path across Coles County at its southwest corner in Trilla, along the Cumberland County line. Hilgenberg said the tornado tore up a home in this rural community. "The house is unlivable and the outbuildings there were pretty well destroyed," Hilgenberg said, adding that he had not received any reports of the tornado or the storm that night causing any injuries in Coles County.
Hilgenberg said the tornado also downed power lines near Trilla as it began making its way northeast across the countryside before dissipating near Ashmore. He said the storm warning sirens in Mattoon, north of Trilla, were not activated because the tornado's path was tracking well away from Mattoon. Coles County also was hit Friday evening by a severe thunderstorm with high winds.
the Lincoln Fire Protection District reported that crews from Ameren Illinois and Coles-Moultrie Electric Cooperative were out Saturday morning restoring power in sections of the county that were experiencing outages. Hilgenberg said those winds were strong enough on their own to knock down several streetlight and utility poles near the John Deere distribution facility along U.S.
45 north of Mattoon. "That was kind of surprising," Hilgenberg said of this damage far from the tornado's path..
