Kentucky remembers tornado victims as rebuilding continues
FRANKFORT, KY. >> Chris Bullock has a lot to be grateful for as she decorates her new home for Christmas, after spending much of the past year in a camper with her family.
One year ago Saturday, a massive tornado obliterated wide swaths of her Kentucky hometown of Dawson Springs, leaving her homeless after a terrifying night of death and destruction.
Things look much different now.
In August, Bullock and her family moved into their new home, built free of charge by the disaster relief group God’s Pit Crew. It sits on the same site where their home of 26 years was wiped out.
“God’s sent blessings to us,” Bullock said in a phone interview Friday. “Sometimes we feel there’s a little guilt, if you will. Why were we spared?”
The holiday season tragedy killed 81 people across Kentucky and turned buildings into mounds of rubble as damage reached into hundreds of millions of dollars. Elsewhere in the state, Mayfield took a direct hit from the swarm of December tornadoes, which left a wide trail of destroyed buildings and shredded trees. In Bowling Green, a tornado wiped out an entire subdivision.
It was part of a massive tornado outbreak across the Midwest and the South.
In Dawson Springs and other Kentucky towns in the path of the storms, homes and businesses have been springing up steadily in recent months. Government assistance, private donations and claims payouts by insurers have poured
into the stricken western Kentucky region.
“It’s more than encouraging,” said Jenny Beshear Sewell, the mayor-elect of Dawson Springs and a cousin of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. “In a storybook, it is like the turn to the next chapter. That’s how it feels. That’s what it looks like.”
On Saturday, the governor will lead commemorative events recalling the horrifying opening chapters of the tragedy. The gatherings in Dawson Springs, Mayfield and Marshall County will remember those who died and pay tribute to the rescue workers who pulled people from the wreckage — as well as the volunteers who have pitched in for the massive rebuild.
“Nothing I’ve ever seen had prepared me for what I saw in first light that day,” Beshear said leading up to the anniversary. “As we continue to mourn those we lost, my faith tells me that while we may struggle with
the whys — why does it hit us, why do human beings suffer — we see God’s presence in the response.”
Beshear’s family has deep connections to Dawson Springs. The Democratic governor’s father, former two-term Gov. Steve Beshear, grew up in the tightknit western Kentucky community.
The devastation sparked an outpouring of love and help that started almost as soon as daylight revealed the scope of the damage. Beshear, who led the state’s response, said the effort should restore “everyone’s faith in humanity.”
A full year later, the help keeps coming.
But plenty of storm victims continue to struggle, including some of Bullock’s neighbors who lost homes and loved ones. Others are not nearly as far along in rebuilding. Still, progress is steady, and Bullock said it “warms your heart” to see her neighborhood coming back together.