Tornado-slammed areas face a long recovery period
MAYFIELD, Ky. — Workers, volunteers and members of the National Guard fanned out in areas of Kentucky slammed by a series of tornadoes to begin the long process of recovery, including replacing thousands of damaged utility poles, delivering bottles of drinking water and continuing to search for the dead.
The tornado outbreak Friday that killed at least 88 people in five states — 74 of them in Kentucky — cut a path of devastation that stretched from Arkansas, where a nursing home was destroyed, to Illinois, where an Amazon distribution center was heavily damaged.
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll could grow as authorities continued to work around debris that slowed recovery efforts. Nearly 450 National Guard members have been mobilized in the state, and 95 of them are searching for those presumed dead.
“With this amount of damage and rubble, it may be a week or even more before we have a final count on the number of lost lives,” the governor said.
Kentucky authorities said the sheer level of destruction was hindering their ability to tally the damage. Still, efforts turned to repairing the power grid, sheltering those whose homes were destroyed and delivering supplies.
Across the state, nearly 25,000 homes and businesses were without electricity on Tuesday, down slightly from the day before, according to poweroutage.us. More than 10,000 homes and businesses had no water as of Monday, and 17,000 others are under boilwater advisories, Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett told reporters.
A fund set up by the state collected $6 million in donations, according to the governor. Kentucky First Lady Britainy Beshear launched a Christmas toy drive for children affected by the storm. She is asking for unwrapped toys, books, and gift cards of $25 that will be distributed to families in need.
State and local officials said it could take years for some of the hardesthit areas to fully recover.
Five twisters hit Kentucky in all, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 200 miles, authorities said.
In addition to the deaths in Kentucky, the tornadoes also killed at least six people in Illinois, where the Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville was hit; four in Tennessee; two in Arkansas, where the nursing home was destroyed and the governor said workers shielded residents with their own bodies; and two in Missouri.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Monday that it has opened an investigation into the collapse of the Amazon warehouse in Illinois.
Mayfield, home to 10,000, suffered some of the worst damage. Debris from destroyed buildings and shredded trees covered the ground in the city. Twisted sheet metal, downed power lines and wrecked vehicles lined the streets.
Beshear told reporters that the Kentucky Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance would undertake a months-long review into the deaths of eight people at a candle factory in Mayfield.
On the outskirts of Dawson Springs, another town devastated by the storms, homes were reduced to rubble and trees toppled, littering the landscape for a span of at least a mile. Jack Whitfield Jr., the Hopkins County judge-executive, estimated that more than 60% of the town, including hundreds of homes, was “beyond repair.”