Digitizing 8 mm and Super 8 mm film is particularly useful because with VLC and other software, you can extract snaphots, etc. They're a little grainy, but are like time portals. Here's a still from along the path of the April 21, 1967, Belvidere Tornado Outbreak, in Oak Lawn, Illinois. Dozens of people died. We were living in Justice, another Chicago suburb. I've seen that building on the right in news reports about the event. Not sure who took the footage, probably my Dad, though he may have been driving. On July 2, 1997, I was looking for an apartment in the Detroit area during a series of tornadoes there, too. Tornadoes can -- and do -- strike in large parts of the USA.
Chicago is now bracing for what may be the biggest snow storm in the area since 1967. We were there at the time. Hopefully someone in my family has pictures. My Dad -- it's his 77th birthday on February 1st and it was my Mom's 76th on January 30 -- was out of town but he remembers fire trucks delivering food and other supplies to areas where power went down. I remember those Chicago years as wild times: fires, tornadoes, blizzards, protests, riots and general craziness. We next moved to Mendota Heights, Saint Paul, Minnesota, and from there, Durham, North Carolina.
Today's Rune: Movement.
8 comments:
The fact that tornadoes don't hit populated areas taht frequently is a good sign to me. It means there are still quite large uninhabitated areas in America.
If you were to ask my wife, she'd say that I'm tryin' to digitize everything. Cool pics. It's a time consuming process, but well worth it.
I well remember that blow in '97. Tonight's snow isn't so bad, maybe 4 inches right now without counting the few drifts. *shrug* Detroit needs something to keep it off the streets for a day or two.
I am glad to be out of the midwest but worried about my family and house there.
Erik, my brother called me this morning and they had severe winds causing 3 foot drifts. They seem more adept at snow removal than the city, and will be back to normal tomorrow!
I was just talking to my father about the "Superstorm," as it was called. I have very clear memories of it-- I was five then.
My father was an electrician and had a job at Kedzie and North Avenue. We lived in Lincoln Park, about two miles away. It took him a couple of hours to get home.
I also remember the destruction caused by the Oak Lawn tornado; my mother grew up in Evergreen Park, right next door (Ted Kaczinski was a childhood friend of hers!). We used to go to visit my grandparents, who lived there until the mid seventies. The destruction, particularly of the high school, which was, thank god, unoccupied, was astounding. Areas that had been dense commercial strips were completely gone.
I didn't know until I saw a History Channel thing on it a couple of years ago that the tornado continued eastward to the lake, bouncing across the south side of Chicago.
I was there too - in Glencoe in '67- and I remember that snowstorm. The snow in our yard was deeper than I was tall. Made for some awesome fort building.
-JC
Hey folks, thanks for the comments!
Much appreciated!
JY, I'd love to see that HC take; and JC -- we were all in the same zone, or at least One Step Beyond the Outer Limits of the Twilight Zone. . .
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