The shallow waters of the Kankakee River, which flow past the Sandbar Road property of Sue Antonelli, are the only constants in her life.

Everything in and around the life of a 61-year-old Antonelli, who came within an eyelash of losing her life in the chaos of the March 10 tornado that reduced her home at 2309 Sandbar Road to rubble, has seemingly forever been altered.

While there was amazingly only one death directly attributed to that early evening tornado that ripped through sections of south Kankakee and then Aroma Township, Antonelli miraculously survived even though everything surrounding her was destroyed.

“Nature was just beautiful here,” she said. Until it wasn’t.

Believing the approaching storm that late afternoon would be “just another storm,” by the time she realized it was far more than that, it was too late to do anything but attempt to take refuge in the 1,300-square-foot elevated home’s bathroom.

She was unable to get the bathroom door completely closed, and within moments the tornado had arrived in the 2000 block of Sandbar Road, and massive destruction was set to take place.

“The entire house was shaking,” she recalled this week during a return trip to the area, which once filled her life with joy.

She was being violently tossed about. The next thing she remembered was lying in a pile of debris that was once her house.

Nature’s destructive forces had moved on in an easterly direction, but there she lay, under debris, calling out for help.

She could hear some people calling out for survivors. She attempted to answer, but they did not hear her. She attempted to answer more forcefully. Finally, her plea was heard, and she was rescued.

She sustained extensive injuries at the property she bought in June 2016. An ambulance eventually made its way to her through the vast destruction and took her to the Riverside Medical Center emergency room.

The mother of three sons was examined and found to have two collapsed lungs, nine broken ribs, seven fractured ribs, a broken right shoulder, a broken scapula, and a pair of fractured knees.

Antonelli remained in Riverside for 22 days. Upon her discharge, she went to a son’s Peotone residence, where she received at-home therapies. She continues outpatient physical therapy.

Healing takes time

She is once again mobile. She has resumed driving. She is a taking a trip to South Carolina this week by car, as flying is not yet a travel option as she continues to physically heal.

Her mental and emotional healing is another matter. There are no bandages or splints to aid that process.

She returned for a brief visit to her Sandbar Road home site on April 8. The destruction illuminated by the sunshine left her stunned.

A main focus of the visit was to reunite with her two cats, Buddy and Scraps. She could not locate either.

A follow-up May 10 trip to her ravaged property brought her even closer to her new reality. With greater mobility as her body continued to heal, she walked the property and examined it more closely.

In a way, it probably saddened her even more.

She reviewed the destruction – and lack of any evidence of Buddy or Scraps – through her fresh eyes with tears.

The property she and her partner, Joe Tallman, a Navy veteran who died in March 2024 due to cancer, the site where he received his hospice care, resembled nothing of what it once was.

It was simply a location of scattered concrete blocks – blocks which once served as the elevated home’s foundation. There were snapped timbers and a destroyed pier, which led to the river waters.

“This house meant everything to me. We built this together,” she said of herself and Joe as they made the existing house their own.

They weathered previous storms inside the dwelling. They lived through floods.

How did she survive?

But March 10 brought something far more than she had ever envisioned. And she was forced to live through it alone.

She believes she was miraculously picked up by Joe, now serving as her guardian angel, or by God, and gently placed away from the crumbling house.

Her heart breaks as she views the damages. She knows she is blessed to have not been the second Aroma Township life claimed by the tornado.

She valued the home at about $200,000. She is still working through her insurance claim.

What the future holds for Antonelli is anyone’s guess. She doesn’t even know at this point.

Her place along the Kankakee River, however, has lost its cherished spot in her heart. The tragedies — first the loss of Joe and now the loss of the house — are almost more than she can bear.

“I don’t feel like I want to be back here,” she flatly said. “... I hate being out here. So many lives destroyed here.”

Before she thinks about fixing the house and property, she said fixing herself is job No. 1.

“This was beautiful. But it’s gone.”

She noted Joe would have celebrated his 65th birthday on Saturday, May 23. She will celebrate it in her heart.

“I still don’t know how I lived through this.”

She vowed to continue the healing process – both physically and mentally. She knows that just like the scattered pieces of her house, she must also collect the pieces of her life and put them back together.

“We loved the river life.”

She continues to find meaningful pieces from her life within the rubble.

She prays one day to also be reunited with Buddy and Scraps.

A GoFundMe started by Antonelli’s daughter-in-law can be found under gofundme.com/f/support-sues-recovery-and-rebuilding-efforts.