DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) - On Monday, central Illinois remembered two nights of tornadoes that shook Decatur in 1996. The second night was the worst.
"It hit really, really hard. I mean, you [could] hear debris hitting the house for several minutes... it seemed like 10 or 15 minutes," said Scott Nicol, a Decatur resident impacted by the tornado.
The F-3 tornado left 29 injured and a 14-mile path of destruction. Nicol describes the moment he saw the aftermath.
"And it was very eerie. It was all I can say... it's like a warzone," Nicol said. He said everyone jumped in to help, including himself.
"Family members, church members, community members come in..." Nichol said. And help made all the difference, especially for one family that had recently moved from Nigeria.
"We had one family from Nigeria who just moved in on the corner (and) had no idea what was happening. And she was pregnant, like seven months pregnant, and their house was completely gone," Nicol said.
Some remnants can still be seen, like the 22nd Street sign embedded in a tree and a tree branch in a fish sign outside what is now the Wild Dog Saloon.
