As a tornado passed over his Kentucky town late Friday, the Rev. Wes Fowler huddled with his wife and three children — ages 12, 8 and 6 — in the basement of the First Baptist Church Mayfield.
“Ceiling tiles were moving up and down and dust filled the room. I basically got my family against a wall in the basement. I laid on top of them. Honestly, we didn’t know if we were going to make it for a few minutes there,” Fowler, 45, said Saturday, sobbing as he stood in the ruins of the church. “… In the moment, all I could think about was covering up my wife and my kids.”
At least 79 people were feared dead — most of them in Kentucky — after a series of tornadoes tore through the Midwest and southeast overnight, according to state and local officials.
On Saturday, President Biden spoke with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, sharing “condolences for the lives lost” and pledging federal assistance.
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Rubble fills a street in downtown Mayfield, Ky., on Saturday after it was struck by a devastating tornado.
(Mark Humphrey / Associated Press)
Beshear told reporters that the tornado touched down for more than 200 miles in Kentucky and may have killed 70 to more than 100 people across 10 or more counties.
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About 40 people were rescued in Mayfield, Beshear said at his Saturday briefing, while a search continued for additional victims.
“This has been the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history,” Beshear said. “The level of devastation is unlike anything I have ever seen.”
The White House said in a statement that the president was briefed on the storms and directed federal resources to be “surged immediately.”
Storm-related deaths were also reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri and Tennessee. Video from small towns like Mayfield showed rescuers combing massive fields of debris Saturday morning, recovering few survivors.
Bricks from shattered buildings litter the sidewalk in front of a sign promoting Mayfield painted on a downtown wall that did not fall on Saturday.
(Mark Humphrey / Associated Press)
The impact was worst in small towns like Mayfield, about 130 miles northwest of Nashville — where those working overnight shifts at factories and warehouses got stuck huddling for safety.
At least two people died and first responders were still searching for others at an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Ill., about 25 miles from St. Louis.
In Mayfield, Ky., where one the largest employers is a family-owned candle factory, Mayfield Consumer Products, relatives were still searching for many of the 110 workers.
One of the factory workers, Jill Monroe, texted her son late Friday to say she was sheltering with coworkers.
Monroe, 52, said tornado sirens had been going on and off since she started her shift at 7 p.m., according to son Chris Chism.
Chism, who lives outside Louisville, was accustomed to frequent tornado warnings, and wasn’t immediately worried.
Niki Thompson, right, and Chris Buchanan, assisted by rescue dog Cheyenne, search for survivors in Mayfield, Ky., on Saturday.
(Mark Humphrey / Associated Press)
“We go through them so much, usually the kids go to the basement and I’ll go to the front porch and watch and see if I can see it coming. That’s just how tornadoes are up here,” he said.
But by 9:30 p.m., his mother texted him to say she and the other workers “were all in the bathrooms hunkered down.”
“They had heard on the weather radio that a tornado had touched down near them,” he said. “She told me that for the first time in her life that she was scared to death.”
Then she wrote, “Told you it’s rough.”
Minutes later, according to reports, the tornado hit the factory.
“I never heard a reply,” Chism said.
Her only child, he drove four hours from his home outside Louisville to Mayfield, arriving by late morning intent on searching the rubble of the factory for his mother. The governor said at the morning briefing that no survivors had been found since 3 a.m. but Chism, a construction worker skilled at demolition work, still hoped he would find his mother alive.
“I’m taking her home either way,” he said. “I don’t really know how to feel about it yet. Once I get there and get to the candle factory, I won’t leave until I find her or she’s found. I brought boots and gloves and tools. I’ll do what I have to do to look for her and anybody else who’s trapped.”
People walk down a street that was devastated by a tornado in Mayfield, Ky., on Saturday.
(Mark Humphrey / Associated Press)
He said his mother moved from the Louisville area to Mayfield four months ago to start over after separating from his stepfather. A lifelong factory worker, she had two choices for jobs, he said: the local chicken plant, or the candle factory, where his cousin already worked.
She told him the workers at the factory were close knit, with little turnover and supervisors willing to fill in for those on the production line. Because it was holiday season, they had been staying late, working shifts that stretched to 7 a.m.
One of the workers who was later rescued, Kayanna Parsons-Perez, went live on Facebook at about 10 p.m. as she and others were trapped amid the ruins.
“I’m really scared,” Parsons-Perez said in the video as others around her wailed and cried. “…Where I’m at, I’m like stuck underneath a wall so I’ll be the last person who they get out.”
On Saturday, Parsons-Perez posted on Facebook to say she had been rescued, was sore and planned to go to the emergency room to get checked.
“Pray for the city of Mayfield,” she said, “Most of us have lost our cars. We’ve all lost our jobs. But we still have our lives, many of us do, some of us don’t.”
Jesse Perry, chief executive for the county surrounding Mayfield, said Saturday that local officials were “in the trenches, trying to find people.”
“We need your prayers,” he said. “We need your help.”
Search crews use heavy machinery Saturday to dig through the rubble of the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory in Mayfield, Ky.
(Timothy D. Easley / Associated Press)
A district court judge in Kentucky was among the dead, the state’s chief justice said. A student at Western Kentucky University who had been set to graduate Saturday died in his home off campus, the university’s president said.
The Rev. Joey Reed of Mayfield First United Methodist Church wrote in a Facebook post Saturday, “The damage across the downtown area is catastrophic.”
Reed and his wife were inside the church when the tornado touched down, ripping off the roof, smashing stained glass windows and leaving a hole in the middle of the historic white-columned stone building.
“It was horrifying,” Reed wrote. “Graves county has lost multiple church sanctuaries. It will be a long recovery.”
Fowler said First Baptist was still searching for one of its 350 members, a man who lived in a mobile home that was destroyed by the tornado. The tornado destroyed another church member’s house and damaged countless others.
“Everything in downtown Mayfield looks like it’s flattened. It doesn’t seem real,” said Fowler, who grew up in Mayfield, taking over the church his father pastored a decade ago.
The church, built in 1929, had been undergoing a renovation, he said, and for the last six months members held services in the gym.
“I’m actually standing in our gym right this second and I’m looking up at the sky,” Fowler said. “The roof’s gone. We’re just going to have to start over. It has torn the roof off of the sanctuary, we have water coming in, stained glass windows broken…”
Fowler paused, overcome by emotion. He said he knows the church isn’t just a structure, it’s the people and their faith.
“That’s who the church is. We’re going to get through this and rebuild,” he said, but added, “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how.”