LEXINGTON, Ky. — The “most severe tornado event in Kentucky’s history” is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 70 people, Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference in Graves County late Saturday morning.
He said the death toll “may in fact end up exceeding 100 before the day is done.”
Beshear said earlier Saturday that four likely tornadoes wreaked havoc on the state with one traveling for more than 200 miles in Western Kentucky, “something we have never seen before.”
More than a dozen Kentucky counties have reported damage from the storms, he said.
Deaths have been reported in multiple counties.
The hardest hit appears to be Graves County in far Western Kentucky, where Mayfield, the county seat, has been devastated, the governor said.
A collapsed roof at a Mayfield candle factory with about 110 people inside resulted in mass casualties and will account for the largest loss of life in the state as a result of the storms, he said.
As of just before noon, Beshear said about 40 of the 110 people inside the plant had been rescued. The last successful rescue there was at about 3:30 a.m., Beshear said, though he said “we still hope and pray that there’s some opportunity for others.”
Eleven people died in Muhlenberg County, Coroner Larry Vincent said. Other counties reporting deaths and injuries were Hopkins, Marshall, Warren, and Caldwell, Beshear said Saturday.
Up to 10 counties may have casualties, he said. Widespread damage was reported in Bowling Green. A Bowling Green police spokesman said Saturday morning that the number of people hurt or killed was not yet known, as first responders were still working to find people amid the wreckage.
The National Weather Service in Louisville said evidence of damage from an EF-3 tornado with estimated wind speeds of 150 mph had been found by its survey team in Bowling Green.
The weather service office in Paducah said in a tweet that crews were out doing storm damage surveys Saturday, but that it will take some time to get a rating on the intensity of the tornado that hit Mayfield.
More than 75,000 Kentucky customers remained without power as of 1:17 p.m. Saturday, according to the website PowerOutage.us.
Before midnight, Beshear declared a state of emergency and activated 181 members of the Kentucky National Guard for search and extraction and debris clearance. The state Transportation Cabinet has mobilized its heavy equipment to help clear debris and will be assisted by the Guard and the Division of Forestry.
“State police has been working all night to save lives,” he said, adding that other emergency responders will be providing assistance and that two tractor-trailers filled with water were headed to Western Kentucky.
Beshear also has asked for an immediate federal emergency declaration, which he said he expects to be approved shortly. He said he had spoken with the federal secretary of Homeland Security, who had pledged full support.
Beshear reported that counties with likely damage and debris as of 4 a.m. included Fulton, HIckman, Graves, Marshall, Lyon, Caldwell, Hopkins, Muhlenberg, Ohio, Breckinridge, Owen, Spencer, Shelby, Christian, Logan, Warren, Edmonson, Taylor and Marion.
“This has been one of the toughest nights in Kentucky history,” Beshear said at the 5 a.m. Saturday update from the Capitol with Michael Dossett, director of Kentucky Emergency Management, and Kentucky Adjutant General Hal Lamberton.
Dossett said this tornado event may surpass the 1974 “super” outbreak “as one of the most deadly in Kentucky history.” That outbreak killed 315 and injured more than 5,800 in the eastern United States, including 77 deaths in Kentucky.
He said rescue and search teams were in operation “even before the winds stopped blowing.”
In Graves County, that effort was made even more challenging because the city’s police station and main fire station were destroyed, officials said at Beshear’s late-morning news conference.
Beshear said hundreds of successful rescues were made in the aftermath of the twisters. And search operations were ongoing.
Jeremy Creason, Mayfield’s fire chief and Emergency Medical Services director, said at the news conference that the main focus in Mayfield remains at the candle plant, where “a steady flow of walking wounded” emerged from the rubble overnight.
“The structure is just a pile of bent metal and steel,” he said. “We had to at times crawl over casualties to get to live victims.”
Beshear described a scene where cars and huge metal drums were scattered atop the area where the building once stood.
“It’s pretty awful to witness,” he said.
Officials said resources were pouring in from surrounding areas, including ambulances, generators, extra police vehicles and police radios to fill the void left by those lost in the storm.
Emergency shelters have been set up in high schools in the area.
Mayfield Police Chief Nathan Kent said a curfew would be in place beginning at 7 p.m. Saturday for the city of Mayfield and in other areas in Graves County that were in the path of the storm.
After visiting Mayfield, the governor planned to visit Dawson Springs, which he said was also severely damaged in the wake of the twister.
It appears the storm is out of the same weather system that originated in Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee. The state’s emergency operations center in Frankfort opened and started receiving calls as of 8 p.m. Friday, said Dossett.
Lamberton said Guard members started mobilizing after midnight.
State police said they planned to visit homes in Graves and surrounding counties to make sure no one was trapped inside. In addition to helping with rescue and recovery, they said they’d help with “safeguarding vulnerable property” in storm-ravaged areas.
“The public is strongly urged to avoid the city limits of Mayfield to allow for fluid emergency operations,” state police said in a news release Saturday morning.
Beshear said hospitals in the area were “in good shape” treating the injured, even though some have been busy with COVID-19 patients.
Asked if advance warning of the storm was sufficient, Beshear said, “I do believe there was advance warning, but this is a storm the likes of which we have never seen in terms of what this tornado did.”
He said he had family members in the area he could not reach, noting that his father, former Gov. Steve Beshear was from Dawson Springs. He cautioned that “people will need help for months.”
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(Lexington Herald-Leader staff writer Valarie Honeycutt Spears contributed to this report.)
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