article_snippet.sent: (CNN)In her 40 years living in Rochelle, Illinois, Cathy Olson had never seen a tornado that big.
article_snippet.sent: Cathy Olson watched the hulking gray twister grind past Cathy Olson town Thursday, tearing up her town fringes.
article_snippet.sent: Farther north, in the rural Illinois hamlet of Fairdale, one person died as a twister shredded homes and ripped trees bare of leaves and most limbs.
article_snippet.sent: On Thursday, a video surfaced on YouTube of a massive twister barreling across an open field, barely missing farmhouses and barns.
article_snippet.sent: A  large and dangerous twister tore across fields in Iowa.
article_snippet.sent: And a twister touched down 70 miles outside of St. Louis.
article_snippet.sent: Hail stones the size of tennis balls plummeted down on Ashton, Illinois.
article_snippet.sent: It could have been worse as severe tornado damage dotted a path not far from the dense populations of Chicago and Rockford -- the state's third largest city.  
article_snippet.sent: North of Rochelle, a tornado took away a local favorite restaurant -- Grubsteakers.  
article_snippet.sent: In Rochelle, a tornado flattened some of Olson's friends' homes.
article_snippet.sent: My mom said this is the first time dog's ever seen a tornado.
highlights_snippet.sent: At least one person died as a result of storms in Illinois, an official says .
  