The Paducah office of NWS flew a helicopter from their west border of responsibility to their east border. Saw a single track for the "big one" all the way to the Beaver Dam/Hartford metroplex - they are 2 miles apart. Hartford is the county seat - where the judge who was killed worked in the state District Court. Our niece lives between BD and Hartford, and watched trees in the fields behind her house get torn up by the outer winds. (Hartford is locally-famous for a sign at the edge of town reading 'Hartford - home of 2,000 happy people ... and a few soreheads.")
The Louisville area NWS has not reported on the eastern track yet.
2 NWS survey teams in the Bowling Green area reported that - in 2 days - they were only able to "survey" one 3 mile segment and another 8 mile segment due to all the destruction. This is a different tornado than the one that hit Mayfield, and also appears to be a fairly long track. It may also have started in Arkansas. It hit the Corvette plant that is beside I-65, but not a direct hit - tore a lot of aluminum roofing up and off.
Trying to get into the damage areas is difficult - wires and trees down across roads - plus cops keeping folks out while rescue/recovery ops continue, but the roads are still clogged with pick up trucks and vans and even 18 wheelers full of Kentuckians driving in to help. Seems like every church and school has sent a truck out already. Most business are taking donations. My closest hardware store (still family owned and beating Lowes and Home Depot for personal service daily) is matching up to $5,000 purchases/donations. Dang near empty already. Even the pet stores are donating.
So far, Shepherd Smith has not gone live criticizing the relief efforts, or crying, and has not been seen using a chain saw to help either. That's OK. Country boys can survive. Hell, when my mom got hit in 2000, we weren't even to her house yet when my brick-cell phone rang with a friend of hers who lived 100 miles away, giving us the address to a furnished house where she could stay - they had just moved her mom to a nursing home and held off selling it until my mom was back in her newly-built replacement. The second day, we were sorting through junk in her torn-up house and the father of a guy I went to grade school and Sunday school with shows up, with a chain saw, asking what to do to help. He'd driven 100 miles - her name/quote was in an on-line article about the tornado.
Tragedies also bring out the best in people.
The Louisville area NWS has not reported on the eastern track yet.
2 NWS survey teams in the Bowling Green area reported that - in 2 days - they were only able to "survey" one 3 mile segment and another 8 mile segment due to all the destruction. This is a different tornado than the one that hit Mayfield, and also appears to be a fairly long track. It may also have started in Arkansas. It hit the Corvette plant that is beside I-65, but not a direct hit - tore a lot of aluminum roofing up and off.
Trying to get into the damage areas is difficult - wires and trees down across roads - plus cops keeping folks out while rescue/recovery ops continue, but the roads are still clogged with pick up trucks and vans and even 18 wheelers full of Kentuckians driving in to help. Seems like every church and school has sent a truck out already. Most business are taking donations. My closest hardware store (still family owned and beating Lowes and Home Depot for personal service daily) is matching up to $5,000 purchases/donations. Dang near empty already. Even the pet stores are donating.
So far, Shepherd Smith has not gone live criticizing the relief efforts, or crying, and has not been seen using a chain saw to help either. That's OK. Country boys can survive. Hell, when my mom got hit in 2000, we weren't even to her house yet when my brick-cell phone rang with a friend of hers who lived 100 miles away, giving us the address to a furnished house where she could stay - they had just moved her mom to a nursing home and held off selling it until my mom was back in her newly-built replacement. The second day, we were sorting through junk in her torn-up house and the father of a guy I went to grade school and Sunday school with shows up, with a chain saw, asking what to do to help. He'd driven 100 miles - her name/quote was in an on-line article about the tornado.
Tragedies also bring out the best in people.
