'A thunderous roar': Survivors remember deadly Illinois tornado on one-year anniversary
Mark Atkinson thought the death metal show coming to the Apollo Theatre in Belvidere a year ago would be the perfect chance to introduce his 13-year-old son to the music he loves.
Atkinson, 53, of South Beloit, had been lead guitarist for Pure Aggression, an early '90s, Rockford-based heavy metal band. It recorded a couple albums of loud, heart-pumping sound before breaking up in 1996.
Although Atkinson had previously taken his son, Tyler, to see Iron Maiden in concert, this would be his son's first live experience with heavier rock music. Atkinson wanted Tyler to see the complexity of the instrumentation and how technically sound the musicians were.
But a powerful tornado packing 100 mph winds upended their plans and their lives.
'A thunderous roar'
After the first band, Crypta, finished its set, there was a pause announced before the next band took the stage, Atkinson said.
"The only announcement I heard was that there was going to be a little bit of a delay setting up the next band because of the storm," Atkinson said. "That's it. That's what I heard. So we were both just kind of looking at our phones. The next thing you know there was a huge roar — a thunderous roar — and then it was just so quick and suddenly there's just a bunch of debris falling and then I was out."
A tornado that formed southwest of Davis Junction at 7:24 p.m. March 31, 2023, gathered strength as it barreled through town and into southeast Winnebago County. It set a collision course with downtown Belvidere in Boone County and sped toward the Apollo Theatre.
When it arrived 20 minutes later, it was an EF-1 tornado at peak strength. It brought the roof crashing down on Atkinson and more than three dozen audience members.
Fred Livingston Jr., 51, of Belvidere was killed. Forty-eight people were injured. Others were left with the kind of lingering psychic scars you can't see on an x-ray.
Atkinson awoke to find himself buried under an avalanche of roof debris. He tried to lift it, but it was too heavy. He could hear movement above him and began to call for help.
'Worst case scenario'
Hasib Neaz, 34, of Des Plaines, suffered from splitting headaches in the days following the Apollo Theatre roof collapse.
It was unclear to him if it was a lingering side effect of roof debris that had hit him hard in the head or from spending hours a day on the phone contacting the injured he had helped pull out from under the rubble.
After he realized the roof had fallen on him and dozens of others in the concert audience, Neaz joined those helping to rescue people trapped beneath the rubble. Theater personnel urged them to stop digging and go to the basement, but Neaz and others believed they were racing against time and if they did not quickly free those trapped, they could die.
While some lifted heavy pieces of timber, Neaz helped victims to safety. Among them was one woman who Neaz still keeps in touch with and later learned had a broken spine, a broken leg and severe cut on her head from the roof collapse.
Neaz has now recovered physically from the tornado. He suspects his headaches were caused by spending too much time on the phone reaching out to members of the death metal community, a community whose fans he says cannot be stereotyped.
Neaz himself is a data scientist with degrees in statistics and economics. There were also real estate agents, information technology professionals, warehouse workers and mechanics in the audience, among many others.
Although Neaz said his headaches are gone, anxiety can return at any time.
"There was a huge thunder the other day and my whole window shook," Neaz said of a recent storm. "I had to move away from the windows and I'm like, 'Oh crap,' you know, 'Is this building going to collapse on me?' It's like the worst case scenario just comes up."
'Safest building in town'
A trained storm spotter, Atkinson had known there was the potential for severe weather the night of the concert in Belvidere.
"And I'm like, 'Maybe we shouldn't be here.' And then I kind of was like 'Well, this is a brick building that's been here over a 100 years. This thing is solid.' I'm like, ‘We're probably in the safest building in town.’ That was my mindset at that moment," Atkinson said.
When audience members pulled him out from under the rubble, Atkinson didn't know how badly he was injured. He kept asking where his son was. The others began searching for Tyler and found him.
Tyler had been hit on the head, was cut and still has lingering issues. Atkinson suffered a broken right femur, a severed left ear and had a spike puncture his shoulder.
Atkinson went on to have six surgeries. Metal rods were inserted into his leg that became infected and had to be replaced.
For a man who enjoys jogging, riding a motorcycle and snowmobiling, it has been a lengthy process just regaining mobility going from a wheelchair, to crutches to a cane.
"I don't know that I'll be running again," Atkinson said. "Me and my son would jog together. I don't want to say that I can't. I'm going to try."
The Atkinsons are among 20 represented in 11 separate pending lawsuits accusing the venue owners and concert promoters of negligence. The owners of the venue and the promoters have denied wrongdoing.
'Like a bomb'
Sean Kelley, 34, of Davenport, Iowa, had gone to the show with a friend. They had been standing right where the roof would cave in. But when a 30-minute pause was announced because of bad weather, Kelley and his friend headed to the bathroom while others shopped the merchandise tables and drank beer.
The storm hit the theater as Kelley washed his hands.
"There was the loudest frickin' bang I ever heard in my life," Kelley said. "It sounded like a bomb went off.
"The lights went out, and it was pitch black. There were maybe seven guys in the bathroom at the time. Everybody was like what the hell just happened? No one knew. The lights flickered and then came back on . That’s when the fire alarms started going off, and we realized that something bad just happened."
A husband and father of two, Kelley said panicked people were everywhere, some with bloody faces. No one seemed to know if it was safer to be inside or outside the building.
"We didn't know what the hell to do," Kelley said.
Staff directed some of the audience into the basement and Kelley went with them. He said there were about 200 people down there and there appeared to be room for many more.
By then, the damage had already been done. He said it seemed like there could have been better procedures in place in case of an emergency.
When he finally left the theater, he was surprised by what he found.
"I walked out of there expecting to see chaos," Kelley said. "And it was like it was just us. My car was parked a block away. I have a nice Toyota 4-Runner and I am thinking it's going to be trashed and torn up. It didn’t even have a scratch on it. There wasn’t a leaf or tree branch or anything.
"It just blew my mind how it would destroy that building so badly, but everything around it seemed fine."
Jeff Kolkey writes about government, economic development and other issues for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at (815) 987-1374, via email at jkolkey@rrstar.com and on Twitter @jeffkolkey.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Remembering Apollo Theatre roof collapse 1 year ago after tornado
