Recovery Efforts Begin After Tornado Devastation; 75% of a Kentucky city disappeared, authorities estimate

(CNN) – Those who saw their lives shattered in moments by the devastation of the violent and relentless tornadoes over the weekend are now grappling with a new reality: seeking to meet basic needs for food and shelter while surrounded by devastation and uncertainty.

In the small western Kentucky town of Dawson Springs, about 75% of the community was wiped out and replaced by “chaos,” Mayor Chris Smiley said Sunday.

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Smiley, who has lived in the city for 63 years. “It’s just devastating.”

The severe weather line that moved across the central and southern United States from Friday through Saturday left at least 100 people dead. The storms generated at least 50 reported tornadoes in eight states, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

In Kentucky, teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are on the ground, said Michael Dossett, Kentucky’s director of Emergency Management. More than 300 National Guard soldiers are on duty in nine counties, according to Governor Andy Beshear.

“The devastation is, frankly, something you would see in a war zone. This is an event where we had commercial and residential properties literally stripped of the land,” Dossett told CNN on Sunday.

The devastation of tornadoes: dead, missing and displaced

The Dawson Springs missing persons list contains more than 100 names, a Hopkins County emergency official said Sunday, but they are hopeful that most are people who left town but have not yet registered.

While rescue efforts continued Sunday, no survivors were pulled from the rubble, said Nick Bailey, director of Emergency Management for Hopkins County.

The city’s death toll rose to 13 on Sunday, up from 10 on Saturday, Hopkins County Coroner Dennis Mayfield said. The deaths range between the ages of 34 and 86 and include two older sisters who lived together, as well as a married couple.

“Right now our spirits are shattered, but we will be back,” Mayfield said.

Meanwhile, “hundreds and hundreds” in the city of almost 3,000 people no longer have a place to live. “Almost an entire city has been displaced at this point,” Bailey said.

Those whose houses are still standing are likely without power and could be in the dark for up to a month, Bailey said.

“You can replace a house, you can replace furniture, you can replace clothes, but you cannot replace memories and images,” he told her. Erica Steip told CNN affiliate WZTV, while going through what was left of his sister’s house in Dawson Springs. “She is alive and I am very grateful,” Steip said.

The American Red Cross has eight shelters set up in Kentucky and is helping nearly 200 people, the group’s Kentucky executive director Steven Cunanan said Sunday.

Several state parks have also been opened to help house families who lost everything, Beshear said at a news conference Sunday afternoon.

“We are taking them in,” Beshear said. “We are trying to guarantee everyone a two-week stay, so they are not worried about tomorrow. They can worry about finding their relatives and making sure their children have enough to eat.”

Cunanan said the main goal of the Red Cross is to provide food and care to people who were forced from their homes by tornadoes. “We have to help them get their lives back and help them get back to normal.”

The emotional cost of having your life disrupted by a natural disaster is also an important consideration, Cunanan said. “I’ve seen it in every disaster I’ve been to. They’re shocked. They don’t know where to turn.”

Rescuers Can’t Go Door-to-Door Because “There Are No Doors,” Says Kentucky Governor

For Beshear, the devastation in Dawson Springs hits close to home because it is his father’s hometown, but the severe weather affected a large swath of his state.

The death toll in Kentucky alone is at least 80 and is expected to exceed 100, Beshear said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. Eighteen counties in the state are reporting damage, Beshear said, noting that a monstrous tornado advanced for more than 360 kilometers, 320 of which were in Kentucky.

“I have towns that don’t exist anymore, that just don’t exist anymore,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I mean you go door to door to see how people are doing and see if they are okay. There are no doors … it’s devastating.”

Beshear told NBC News that he expects other challenges ahead, given power outages and winter weather conditions, and said some morgues in the state may not be able to meet current needs.

“One of our challenges is that we are losing so many people to this, that most of our morgues are not big enough, so our medical examiners from across the state are coming,” Beshear said.

There is a “massive recovery effort” focused primarily on Dawson Springs, Graves, Mayfield and Bowling Green, according to Dossett, the director of Emergency Management.

President Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration for Kentucky on Sunday night, the White House said. The measure allows grants and low-cost loans to go toward housing and home repairs in the affected areas.

“As we know that housing is going to be such a tremendous need, we are dispatching one of our housing experts who will be here tomorrow to begin the strategy of how we are going to be able to help with long-term housing needs and their recovery. communities, “said Deanne Criswell, FEMA Administrator.

Beshear told CNN he plans to visit the Mayfield candle factory that collapsed in the storm, which struck as employees worked to meet the demands of the busy Christmas season.

Eight people were killed at a candle factory and eight others are missing as of Sunday night, Mayfield Consumer Products spokesman Bob Ferguson told CNN.

“We know for a fact that more than 90 employees escaped alive the night of the tornadoes,” Ferguson said.

“It will be a miracle if someone else is found alive,” amid the rubble of the collapsed candle factory, Beshear said. “There is at least 4 meters of metal with cars on top, barrels of corrosive chemicals that are there.”

The governor said he heard the facility had an emergency plan in place.

“Most of the workers made it to what was supposed to be the safest place. But when you look at the damage this storm caused not just there, but the entire area, I’m not sure there was a plan that would have worked.” , He said.

As officials turn their attention to immediate recovery needs, meteorologists are on the lookout for the possibility of another round of adverse weather conditions in the region.

While it is still early, some areas hit by tornadoes will see the same kind of weather pattern this week, with warming followed by another front that could bring a risk of severe weather for the weekend, according to CNN meteorologist Michael. Guy.

Tornadoes have been reported in eight states

In addition to Kentucky, tornadoes from the same storm system were reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee, the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center said.

As of Sunday, five EF-3 tornadoes have been identified in the following locations: Defiance, Missouri; Edwardsville, Illinois; Bowling Green, Kentucky; Saloma, Kentucky and in Kentucky between Cayce and Beaver Creek, an area that includes the devastated city of Mayfield.

At least six people were killed in a collapsed Amazon warehouse in the Illinois town of Edwardsville, Fire Chief James Whiteford said. The recovery phase is expected to take days and first responders will continue to search the site for evidence of life, he said.

The six dead were between 26 and 62 years old, the Edwardsville Police Department said.

One of the victims was identified as Clayton Cope, a 29-year-old United States Navy veteran. He had worked for Amazon for just over a year as a maintenance mechanic, said his mother, Carla Cope. His father also worked at the facility in the same position.

“Yes [Clay] I wouldn’t have been there, my husband would have been, “she said.

An Amazon representative said a tornado warning siren sounded 11 minutes before the storm’s arrival.

“Managers were on loudspeakers telling people to get to the shelter area at the scene. They were also being guided by other managers and other employees trying to get everyone to that safe place,” the Amazon spokeswoman said Sunday, Kelly Nantel, to CNN affiliate KSDK.

It added that the employees took refuge in two unspecified safe areas. Nantel said dispatchers also contacted Amazon delivery drivers in the area and told them to shelter in place.

In the northeastern Arkansas city of Monette, at least one person died in a tornado-damaged nursing home, Mayor Bob Blankenship said.

A second person died after the storm hit a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville, authorities said. That person was identified Sunday as the store’s deputy director, June Pennington, of Mississippi County, Arkansas, according to county spokesman Tom Henry.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that it was a “miracle” that only one person died in the nursing home.

“When I went to that facility, it was as if the sky absorbed the roof and all its contents. And it is just a miracle with 67 residents that we have only lost one there. And that is due to the heroic efforts of the staff and also the fact that we had a 20 minute warning, ”he said.

Authorities confirmed two storm-related deaths in Missouri, including a woman killed at her home in St. Charles County and a young child who died at her home in Pemiscot County, the governor said.

Tennessee reported four severe weather-related deaths. Two were in Lake County, one in Obion County and one in Shelby County, Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Dean Flener said.

– CNN’s Ashley Killough, Laura Studley, Kiely Westhoff, Susannah Cullinane, Eric Levenson and Amir Vera contributed to this report.