Havana students, community residents clean up farm field debris

FULTON COUNTY (25News Now) - Cleanup resumes in Fulton County after Tuesday’s EF-3 tornado.

But one farmer is getting a lot of help with his own cleanup.

Chris Hummel knew the damage would be significant.

“Bangin’ and jangin,’ the building was shaking, waiting for the roof to go off and heard wind was shattering.”

But he didn’t know it would wipe out everything.

“After a five-minute total, we walked out and saw we had nothing left.”

After seeing the damage firsthand, Hummel says he and his wife knew they needed help - that’s when Central Illinois residents stepped up to the plate to assist with cleaning up debris.

“The tornado came and you need a lot of extra hands,” said Havana resident Mike White. “Whether you get paid for it, you probably don’t, but you help anyway.”

Hummel received countless text messages and calls from people offering to help - and students from Havana, in Mason County, just showed up with gloves in hand and a willingness to pitch in.

“It’s rough,” said Havana High School athlete Caden Olson. “They’re only about 12 miles away from us. It’s big. This is a pretty small community around here. So, having all these people out here, I’m sure, is pretty big for these guys.”

With spring planting season here, Hummel says he’s expecting cleanup to take weeks to complete - but now he thinks it will be finished sooner.

“It’s just overwhelming the amount of people that’s coming. With the amount of devastation we’ve got, and you looked at it when it started, you would think it’s going to take weeks. I mean it’s taken days. That’s how fast it’s cleaning up.

Some of those who came out say this is just the least they could do to offer a helping hand.