TORNADOES SLAM PARTS OF 4 STATES
100 feared dead, buildings leveled, trail of destruction
More than 100 people may have been killed in a savage tornado storm that stretched 200 miles through four states, Kentucky’s governor said Saturday as rescue workers sorted through massive piles of debris.
At least 70 people were killed when tornadoes struck western Kentucky, said Gov. Andy Beshear — who added that he expected the death toll to rise.
“Earlier this morning ... we were sure would we lose over 50 Kentuckians,” Beshear said. “I’m not certain that number is north of 70. It may, in fact, end up exceeding 100.”
Deadly twisters also slammed an Amazon facility in Illinois and a nursing home in Arkansas.
But Kentucky absorbed the biggest blow in the Friday night disaster — and daylight on Saturday revealed the enormity of the destruction.
“It’s indescribable, unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” said Beshear. “You see parts of industrial buildings, roofs, or sightings in trees — if trees are lucky enough to stand. Huge metal poles bent in half if not broken, buildings that are no longer there, huge trucks that have been picked up and thrown. And sadly, far too many homes that people were likely in, entirely devastated.”
Between late Friday night and early Saturday, four tornadoes struck Kentucky. One of them roared through a candle factory in the city of Mayfield.
Beshear said at least 110 people were working in the factory when the twister collapsed its roof. “The building was essentially leveled,” resulting in “mass casualties,” said Sarah Burgess, a Kentucky state trooper.
Kyana Parsons-Perez was working a regular shift at the factory when the building crumbled, trapping her beneath about 5 feet of debris. She said it was “absolutely the most terrifying” incident she’d ever faced.
“I did not think I was going to make it at all,” she said during an interview with NBC’s “Today.”
Thanks to first responders, who received assistance from inmates held at the nearby Graves County Jail, Parsons-Perez escaped the factory alive alongside dozens of others. It took rescuers nearly two hours to reach her.
Among those unaccounted for at the factory was 50-year-old Denise Johnson Williams, a mother of four whose family members awaited word at the site Saturday.
“It’s Christmastime, and she works at a place that’s making candles for gifts,” her brother Darryl Williams said. “To give up the gift of life to make a gift. We haven’t
heard anything, and I’m not presuming anything. But I’m expecting for the worst.”
Search and rescue efforts continued in Bowling Green, a manufacturing and college city in southern Kentucky.
While no injuries had been reported in the region by Saturday evening, Bowling Green police spokesman Ronnie Ward said progress has been hampered by debris strewn across roads. He added that numerous apartment complexes in the area suffered severe structural damage, and some factories had collapsed during the storms.
“Right now we’re focusing on the citizens, trying to get to everybody that needs us,” Ward said.
Swaths of the state were also plunged into darkness overnight, with an estimated 60,000 Kentuckians still without power late Saturday morning.
At least 18 tornadoes were reported to have swept across swaths of Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri.
“This morning, I was briefed on the devastating tornadoes across the central U.S.,” President Biden tweeted. “To lose a loved one in a storm like this is an unimaginable tragedy. We’re working with governors to ensure they have what they need as the search for survivors and damage assessments continue.”
In southern Illinois, an Amazon facility was also struck by an apparent tornado late Friday. Officials Saturday confirmed at least six fatalities at the facility in Edwardsville.
Several dozen workers escaped the building on their own and two others were taken by helicopter to hospitals in St. Louis for treatment, Edwardsville Police Chief Michael Fillback said Saturday morning. Details on their condition were not released.
He warned it could take hours for first responders to comb through the site and said cranes and backhoes had been brought in to help move debris.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the damage in Edwardsville was caused by straight-line storms or a tornado, but the National Weather Service office near St. Louis reported “radar-confirmed tornadoes” in the area around the time of the collapse.
Another three deaths in Tennessee have been linked to the storm system while at least one fatality was also reported in Missouri.
A tornado also struck the Monette Manor nursing home in Monette, Ark., on Friday night, killing one person, Craighead County Judge Marvin Day said.
Five people had serious injuries, and a few others had minor injuries, he said.
The nursing home has 86 beds.