Plainfield Mom, daughter survive tornadoes years apart

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Christy Ernst (left) and her daughter Hilary, 19, of Plainfield, Ill., each survived a catastrophic tornado about 21 years apart. | Terence Guider-Shaw~For Sun-Times Media

Updated: July 8, 2011 3:42PM

PLAINFIELD — When the tornado hit Tuscaloosa, Ala., Hilary Ernst, 19, was hunkered down in the basement of her residence hall, talking to a weather expert of sorts — her mom.

Christy Ernst, a mom of five, survived the 1990 tornado that hit Oswego, Plainfield and Crest Hill, killing 29 people, destroying homes and businesses and leaving three schools in ruins. The tornado missed their home on 127th Street, but decimated the houses across the street in Wheatland Plains subdivision.

Twenty years later on April 27, Christy was on the phone with her youngest child, thinking this might be the last time she would talk to her.

Christy said the weather radar showed that the tornado was heading toward the football stadium, near Hilary’s dorm at the University of Alabama.

“I had chills,” Christy said. “I thought if this is the last time I talk to her, I want it to be a positive conversation. I want to do everything to keep her calm. It looked bad.

“I wasn’t going to let her know it. I said, ‘Oh, it looks like it’s going to miss you guys and you’re in a safe place.’ She started crying. She said, ‘Mom, the electricity went out.’ I was just thinking to myself, ‘Oh, I’m on the phone with her and the tornado is going to strike. At least I’m able to try to comfort her a little bit,’” said Christy, a special education administrator at Plainfield Central High School.

“You can hear the panic in my mom’s voice a little bit,” said Hilary, who graduated from Oswego East High School in 2010. “I was hysterical. … My mom was trying to be vague at the same time she wanted me to understand this can potentially be really bad. I was talking to my mom the whole time, then the call fell and I tried to call her back and I couldn’t.”

The tornado had hit.

“I was pretty scared,” Hilary said. “It sounded like a big roll of thunder that didn’t stop.”

When Hilary stepped outside, she couldn’t believe what she saw about two blocks from her dorm.

“The big apartment complex was destroyed. … You couldn’t tell where you were,” she said. “You could see the hospital. On any normal day, you wouldn’t be able to see it because of the trees.”

Two days later, Jeff and Christy Ernst picked up their daughter because the university canceled classes for the rest of the year.

After they got home, Hilary, who wants be a social worker, came up with an idea with her mom to help the college town where 43 people died. This school year, the Ernst family had nicknamed Hilary ‘Bama Baby’ because the baby of the family moved to Alabama. So they started a Bama Babies Collection Drive, asking for donations for infants. They created a Facebook Event page and Christy spread the word at Plainfield North and Plainfield Central high schools, Ira Jones Middle School and Bonnie McBeth Learning Center.

“The generosity of my District 202 was overwhelming,” Christy said. “ In a couple of weeks, we collected a huge amount of new and gently used baby goods, formula, diapers, clothing, high chairs, as well as gifts of cash.”

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Hilary drove back to college in a pickup and dropped the items off at a Red Cross distribution center.

Christy said she taught her children to try to find something positive out of every bad situation.

“I think everyone wants to help, but it just taking that initial step on what to do. … We thought, ‘Just don’t stand back. Just jump in and do something about it,’” Christy said. “It was just an irony … that this town had experienced the same thing.”