All homes were evacuated as a safety precaution and power was out across the area. The Red Cross and Salvation Army established a shelter at a local high school.
    Trees, power lines and debris lay strewn on the ground. Some homes in the rural farming village were barely standing and many had shifted from their foundations. Roofs were missing. Metal siding from barns was wrapped around trees.
    Residents gathered at a road block a mile from town Friday morning, eager to check the damage to their homes. Police, though, refused entry saying it was too dangerous.
    Resident Al Zammuto, a 60-year-old machinist, said he and other residents received cellphone alerts at 6:45 p.m., but he dismissed it as previous warnings hadn't amounted to anything.
    Then his windows exploded.
    He took cover as the severe weather struck. Bricks were torn off the side of his home. Minutes later he stepped outside and couldn't believe his eyes. He said the town looked trashed "looked like a landfill" and the sounds were haunting.
    "People were screaming and yelling," he said. "People were in total shock."
    National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Friedlein said at least two tornadoes swept through six north-central Illinois counties, and that damage survey teams would visit the area to determine how long they stayed on the ground, their strength and the extent of the damage.
    Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner was traveling Friday morning to survey damage in the region, county authorities said.
    After raking Illinois, Thursday's storm and cold front headed northeast, dumping snow in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and sweeping across the Ohio Valley overnight, Friedlein said. The system was headed into the Appalachian region Friday morning with the potential for severe thunderstorms but "not anywhere near the threat" that it packed in the Midwest, he said.
    Roughly 30 homes were damaged or destroyed in Ogle County, adjacent to DeKalb, Sheriff Brian VanVickle said, adding no deaths or significant injuries were reported there. He said 12 people were trapped in the storm cellar beneath a restaurant that collapsed in the storm in Rochelle, about 20 miles southwest of Fairdale.
    One of those rescued from the Grubsteakers restaurant, Raymond Kramer, 81, told Chicago's WLS-TV they were trapped for 90 minutes before emergency crews were able to rescue them, unscathed.
    "No sooner did we get down there, when it hit the building and laid a whole metal wall on top of the doors where we went into the storm cellar," Kramer said. "When the tornado hit, we all got a dust bath. Everyone in there got shattered with dust and debris falling out of the rafters."