LEXINGTON, Ky. — The “most severe tornado event in Kentucky’s history” is believed to have claimed the lives of at least 50 people, with the death toll possibly rising to 70 to 100, Gov. Andy Beshear said early Saturday morning.
Beshear said four likely tornadoes wreaked havoc on the state with one tracked for 227 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, he said. The hardest hit appears to be Graves County in far Western Kentucky. Other counties reporting deaths and injuries were Hopkins, Marshall and Warren, Beshear said. “I’d be surprised if we don’t see at least five or more” counties with casualties, he said.
Mayfield, the county seat of Graves, has been devastated, the governor said. A collapsed roof at a candle factory with about 110 people inside resulted in mass casualties, he said.
Emergency shelters have been set up in high schools in the area, and many people already are staying with family, Beshear said.
Widespread damage was reported in Bowling Green, and a Western Kentucky University student who was scheduled to graduate Saturday died, WKU President Timothy Caboni said. A Bowling Green police spokesman said the number of people hurt or killed was not yet known, as first responders were still working to find people amid the wreckage.
The governor also said as of 4:45 a.m., 56,854 Kentuckians were without electricity, and he expected that number to rise.
According to the website PowerOutage.us, nearly 72,000 Kentucky customers were without power as of about 7 a.m. Saturday.
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.
He said he also has asked for an immediate federal emergency declaration.
Beshear reported that counties with likely damage and debris as of 4 a.m. include Fulton, HIckman, Graves, Marshall, Lyon, Caldwell, Hopkins, Muhlenberg, Ohio, Breckinridge, Owen, Spencer, Shelby, Christian, Logan, Warren, Edmonson, Taylor and Marion.
Beshear said he will go to Western Kentucky as soon as it is safe to travel “to make sure people know they are not alone, that this is one state standing strong with those who have been impacted.”
“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.” It killed 315 and injured over 5,800 more 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.”
It appears the storm is out of the same weather system that originated in Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee, he said.
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, and others may be called to respond.
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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