Evanston has been lucky enough not to endure disasters like Hurricane Katrina. But no city is without a few bouts of violent weather and urban incidents, University Archivist Patrick Quinn said.
Over the past century emergency responders have pulled Evanston residents out of burning buildings, sloshed through flooded basements and plowed the streets free from countless snowstorms. The incidents have been natural and man-made – everything from tornados to fires to shipwrecks.
A “hazard analysis” from 1984 on record at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., ranked possible disasters by their probability; how much of a threat they would cause if they occurred; how vulnerable the city was and how many times the disaster had occurred in the past.
Landslides and droughts scored low or medium in all four categories. Earthquakes and nuclear attacks scored high in vulnerability and threat levels, though both showed low scores for probability and historical precedent.
Civil disturbances were also on the list of possible disasters – six had occurred prior to the study’s completion in 1984.
A tally of disasters also recorded how many occurrences of each type of catastrophe occurred in Evanston. The top three: winter storm, major fire and power failure. As of 1984 three tornados were on record, and a train accident injured 50 Evanston residents after a fire at the Howard El stop in 1956.
With any disaster, the numbers make the biggest headlines. City employees shoveled about 20,000 cubic yards of snow after a blizzard in 1959, according to Evanston Review archives. Floods struck in 1951 and 1957. And 28 hours of solid rain halted traffic in 1954 after dropping 7.5 inches.
In 1967 a snowstorm buried the city in 24 inches of snow a week after another storm dropped 15 inches, according to Review archives. And in the “Big Snow of 1918,” after roads were blocked and supplies became limited, milk deliveries were made on sleighs. As part of the emergency response to a 1994 blizzard, tow trucks hauled away 832 cars.
And boats – victims of storms, explosions and poor handling – still rest below the water’s surface off the Evanston shoreline.
One of the first heroes of NU was Garrett Biblical student Edward W. Spencer, who saved 17 people from the shipwreck of the Lady Elgin in Lake Michigan just north of Evanston in 1860, according to a flyer issued after the incident. Spencer’s last words before sinking into unconsciousness were, “Did I do my best?”
“A lot more lives would have been lost if Spencer and other Northwestern and Garrett students has not swum out to save people,” Quinn said. “It was an awful shipwreck.”
Of the 395 passengers aboard the ship, 297 still died. In a violent storm a lumber schooner had rammed the side of the ship.
After a 1959 storm lasting only 15 minutes brought 75-mph wind gusts and cost $250,000 in damage, Review archives said – about $1.7 million in today’s dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics “Inflation Calculator.” A new police and fire communication center took calls not just for emergency response operations, but also relayed information about downed power lines to utility companies, the Review wrote.
The storm uprooted or split 250 trees, and emergency responders had to rescue six residents. But despite the devastation, children took the opportunity to climb the piles of toppled trees.
Disasters yet to hit Evanston, according to the hazard analysis? Nuclear attacks, radiological incidents and landslides.
“Northwestern and Evanston have been very fortunate to have been largely exempt from disasters and near disasters,” Quinn said. “Evanston is a pretty tranquil place.”
Reach Lee S. Ettleman at [email protected]. Reach Elizabeth Gibson at [email protected].
