Victims of Kentucky tornadoes: "My house, my business, I saw my whole life disappear in an instant"

After the tornado, calm came. Mayfield woke up this Sunday with a splendid winter sun ahead, as if nature hid the hand with which it lashed this town of 10,000 inhabitants in the extreme west of Kentucky on Friday night with excessive fury and capricious clemency. It is ground zero of the devastation caused by a historic series of 30 tornadoes that tore through rural areas of six central and southern US states, causing more than 90 deaths.

But there was the evidence of the destruction: the Red Cross sign twisted on itself, an American flag perched on a jumble of metal that was once a van, a single-family home literally blown to the ground by the wind. middle of the road, that apple-colored 1950s Chevrolet defying gravity in the rubble of a garage…and a completely leveled candle factory that has already become the symbol of a natural catastrophe that has the nation on edge. . It is estimated that dozens of people died, it is not clear how many, although since Saturday afternoon no survivor has been found. About 110 workers were inside at the time of the tragedy; they were doubling shift before the weekend to be able to attend to all the Christmas orders.

In addition to Kentucky, five other states, Illinois (where six people were killed in an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville), Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri were hit by an unprecedented series of tornadoes. The number of fatalities amounted to more than 90 people this Sunday, although the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, feared that it would exceed one hundred. Beshear has shown his concern that the morgues in the region "will remain small" given the magnitude of the tragedy.

Some 53,000 of his fellow citizens, according to Poweroutrage.us, spent the entire weekend without power after power lines were severely damaged. One of the tornadoes, "the strongest in the history of the United States," Beshear said on Sunday afternoon, paraded with its black silhouette for almost 400 kilometers and devastated the center of Mayfield, the church, the courthouse, the store of tires and dozens of houses.

In front of one of them, the young Etelvina Aguilar could not contain her tears first thing in the morning when she remembered what happened two nights ago. She is Guatemalan, she arrived in town four and a half months ago, where she set up a business selling Latin products. As the money was not enough, the family, with the two small children, lived on the second floor of the store. On Friday they lost everything. “There had been other warnings like this, but luckily, I had a hunch and I made the children go down. We hid behind a column, that saved us. It was a matter of five minutes. The boy screamed nonstop. And now look: my house, my business, I saw everything disappear in an instant, ”he says before the pile of rubble from her previous life. The couple had not had time to secure the property. “So we have nothing, just debts.”

Nearby, mounted in a black truck, the cook CE Mines, 60, patrolled, also with tears in his eyes, the streets of downtown. On Friday he spoke with his wife, who was at the doctor, when the terrible shaking began. “We spent that night apart, and yesterday we finally met. I can't say the same for my neighbors. I have no way of knowing if they are alive. This close-knit community has been decimated.”

A little later, Tommy Anderson, a 64-year-old engineer, moved wistfully among the remains of his private wreck. “I have not yet dared to venture inside the house, but it does not matter, because I would not have anywhere to take what has survived, like our beloved piano; there is no furniture storage available in the area”, he explained before the house that he shared with his wife and the family of his son. Luckily, they all managed to take refuge in the basement.

Anderson has managed to secure at least one motel near Mayfield, which he is reserving daily. Other survivors have been taken in by family and friends. Three shelters have been set up in the area, and a place for families to provide evidence, such as personal belongings, to identify loved ones whose trace has been lost.

In the area of ​​the candle factory, today a site full of remains, the rescuers and forensic experts worked overtime. Road access was blocked by several military police patrols. One of his agents asked the curious not to hinder the location and identification of the bodies. “There is still a lot to do there.”

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Even for those who have survived and their houses are reasonably standing, existence has become hell in this sleepy Kentucky town, whose slogan, "more than a memory," rang today, painted on a white wall that has miraculously remained standing on the main street, like a practical joke. There is no electricity or running water, and Regional Police Officer Sarah Burgess, with jurisdiction over 11 counties, five of which have borne the brunt of Friday's storms, fears none of those basic services will return. "At least until next weekend." As if that were not enough, temperatures have plummeted in Mayfield, where it froze on Saturday night.

Burgess explains that they are overwhelmed by the number of people who have come forward to help the survivors. People like the volunteers from the NGO Aerial Recovery, who, having arrived the day before from Nashville, in neighboring Tennessee, had to sleep inside their cars; cooks like the Spanish chef José Andrés, who traveled from Washington on Saturday night to give free meals to those affected; or spontaneous like Bobby Truffen, who had gotten up early to fill his truck to the brim with food and drinks that he was offering to the operators of the cranes that moved huge pieces of metal folded like paper. None of them, police, firefighters or volunteers, had time to spare: the authorities have decreed a curfew from sunset, certainly early at this time of year, until sunrise.

Other neighbors went to the Catalyst church, where the priest Justin Carrico ordered the traffic of donations: cereals, clothes, juices and even a lot of bibles. At one of the tables in the makeshift shelter, an older couple, Tim and Jenny, were eating pizza for breakfast, staring into space. Their house did not suffer too much, but they do not have water or electricity and they had spent the night “with all the clothes they had on to cope with the cold”. “I have a phone that was passed to me from a guy named Errol who has a generator and lets people shower in his house,” Jenny whispers. "If you need a shower, write it down, but don't give it away."

In the institute on the outskirts of Mayfield, scenes like that were repeated between the coming and going of the members of the rescue forces, with fatigue drawn on their faces. Many of those who lost their homes spent their first night here, when the heat hadn't quite gone away. "Yesterday we were relocating them to various places," explains Billy Edwards, director of a center that teaches 530 students, in the center of the Mayfield Cardinals basketball court, now converted into a rescue site. The lack of electricity added drama to the empty, dimly lit stadium.

At noon, a few neighbors had decided to celebrate a mass with a few folding chairs where the Yahweh Baptist Church was. Among them, Arthur Bryn wept as he remembered that in that temple that took the tornado he attended the wedding of his three daughters. “I am 70 years old, and I have always lived here. The worst days of my life have been the ones I've spent away from Mayfield. Until now. This surpasses everything, ”he said hugging his wife.

Beshear: "I do not expect more survivors in the candle factory"

The Democratic Governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear, has become this weekend the most visible face of the management of the natural disaster that has claimed the lives of more than 90 people in this State, the most affected, and in five others: Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri.

Beshear warned from the outset that the number could exceed a hundred victims and put the focus of the tragedy on a candle factory called Mayfield Consumer Products, where there were 110 workers at the time of the catastrophe. "I don't think we will find more survivors there," said Beshear, who on Sunday morning defined the consequences of the series of tornadoes as "the greatest devastation that any of us have seen in our lives."

Adding to the pain for the loss of his compatriots is the fact that Beshear's father, fellow Democratic politician Steve Beshear, 77, who was governor of Kentucky between 2007 and 2015, is a native of Dawson Springs, one of the counties hardest hit by the destruction from tornadoes that capriciously ripped through parts of the region Friday night.

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