Kentucky tornado survivors worried about housing, rebuilding
MAYFIELD, Ky. – Surname tie yourself up with ropes to a basement drain when a tornado tore through their home just a few feet away.
That’s how Shirley Poole, her boyfriend, and her two grandchildren survived a tornado that left their cottage and town in the ruins of the apocalypse.
She said God put his arm around them.
But by Sunday – standing near the wall of her bedroom with a collapsed telephone pole, a child’s desk parked outside and canned beans indoors scattered among broken glass and shards on the floor – that’s the unsettling future for the past 54 years- old.
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They are fine now with power from car plugs and water from bottles and water heaters. But anxious questions hung in the air. How long can they live like this? When can they rebuild, and how?
“It was a little scary,” she said.
On Sunday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said more than 1,000 residents in the area were left homeless in the tornado as federal and state agencies worked to assess the damage and top FEMA officials. visited Mayfield and promised federal assistance with the flooding.
“Housing is going to be such a huge need,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, explaining that the agency will help map out long-term housing plans along with short-term aid.
Many Mayfield residents still have their electricity, water and gas turned off. Some like Poole make money at home, while others go to motels in Paducah or elsewhere, friends’ homes, state parks, and temporary shelters.
In a community center in nearby Wingo called “The Way,” dozens of people spread toiletries, blankets and teddy bears among a sea of cribs. They eat the food on the folding table.
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In a crib, Linda Erickson, 73, said a resident of her apartment complex died when a wall fell on her and the building was deemed unsafe. She hopes to get her cat the next day.
“How do I get my stuff out, with the carriers, when they don’t even want us in there?” she speaks.
Next to her was Angela Legat, who had left her apartment without electricity, heat, water and a dangerous gas leak. She couldn’t afford hotels, so she went to shelters and worried about freezing temperatures. Her daughter plays on a nearby computer.
She said she couldn’t go to work as a medical assistant, which worried her.
Her daughter kept asking her a difficult question: “When can we go back to our home?” she speaks.
Legat was among those waiting for news of workers at the local candle factory, which was hit by the storm with 110 people inside.
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Despite the uncertainty, there were signs of hope in Mayfield on Sunday. Utility crews worked on power lines downtown as crews climbed windows and piled debris. A pharmacy has reopened with the help of generators and a food truck serving customers.
Donations were pouring in from all over the county, from a woman driving from Georgia to help clean up for Louisville’s Muslim Americans for charity, which provided supplies.
At His Holiness’s Church in Mayfield, residents lined up in cars and packed the church to get water, toiletries, clothes, food and even generators. A trailer released by the nonprofit Mercy Chefs, a disaster response organization, is preparing to cook thousands of meals a day.
Resident Timothy Wharton, who was fetching water with his wife Amy, said his family survived after he “closed the closet and prayed”, but the house had no electricity. When the kids will be able to return to school or his job at a shoe factory could restart is uncertain.
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“We didn’t even know if we had jobs,” he said.
As resources pour in, US Representative James Comer, who represents the region, warned that rebuilding would be “a very long process”.
When the sun goes down, some churches smashed in a tornado holds Sunday services at lent churches outside of town.
Bob Waldridge, pastor of the badly damaged Yahweh Baptist Church in Mayfield, said he held a Sunday service in a solitary chapel.
He said he was worried about the difficulties his flock would face in the long run of rebuilding but said the close-knit community helped each other.
“We will get through this,” he said.
Chris Kenning is a statewide corporate writer. Reach him on Twitter @chris_kenning.