December 11, 2021 Deadly Tornado System (Bowling Green, Paducah: house, deed, subdivision)

[Oldhag1]

Overnight our state got hit by devastating tornado. It left destruction across over 220 miles of Kentucky. Estimates of deaths in Mayfield alone is estimated between 50-100. At least one WKU student has died.

We had some activity last night but from what I can tell most destruction was not too bad, although there are some flattened barns.

[Tyryztoll]

I followed the Mayfield tornado on radar as it was happening. What a monster. There was a huge debris ball signature on the correlation coefficient for what had to be 50 to 75 miles at least. Just a preliminary glance at the early morning news reports assures me this is going to be the worst U.S. tornado disaster in over a decade. May God's strength and comfort embrace all who were affected.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Prayers for Kentucky. Was in Louisiana for Hurricane Laura so I know how bad these disasters can be.

[kayanne]

I read about this when I woke up. I am heartbroken for the many losses. A tornado hit last night close to where I live, but minimal damage and no deaths.

[Wartrace]

Terrible storm. I was reading the debris from Mayfield reached to 30,000 feet in the air and winds were measured at over 250 mph. I am not a religious man so my prayers would be false but I can say I am thinking of those touched by this and my hope is death estimates are overstated.

[recycled]

Kygman lives around Mayfield as I recall from his posts. Let's hope he and neighbors / family are OK. There are no doubt power and communications systems outages in the area, so that adds to the chaos and uncertainty after a disaster like this.

[censusdata]

Death toll will likely top number of deaths statewide in the 1974 Super Outbreak. It's simply unreal. I'm a weather geek and had been following the forecasts chatter for a couple weeks on this system then everything as it unfolded last night. I simply could not believe what I was seeing. The Mayfield to Hartford storm had some of the most intense radar indicated wind speeds ever seen, as bad as Joplin, Tuscaloosa, El Reno, etc looked on radar. It never weakened from the TN border until almost Rough River Lake.

It was a very conditional / complex forecast. You don't get that kind of storm ingredients in KY in December. There was high end potential for bad storms but also a lot of potential for no tornadoes. SPC went with Moderate and Enhanced severe weather threats rather than a High Risk. But there was warning of potential strong nighttime tornadoes. NWS Paducah did an incredible job warning people of how bad storms could be. There was a lot of advance warning for the storms, when the whole house is reduced to a slab people die. Tornadoes of that caliber kill people in basements.

There are two swaths of catastrophic damage across KY right now. One runs from SW corner in Fulton Co up the I-69 to W KY Pky corridor, ending around Rough River Lake. Towns like Mayfield, Benton, Princeton, Dawson Springs, Earlington, and Hartford suffered EF4 or EF5 type extreme damage throughout. A second storm formed later and further south, hitting Ft Campbell, Lafayette, Pembroke, Elkton, Bowling Green, Cave City, Horse Cave, and ending N of Campbellsville.

[JRR]

I live in Cookeville TN where we had an E-F 4 tornado in March 2020 that leveled a subdivision and killed 19 people. Having gone through that, it is hard to imagine anything much worse, but what happened to Mayfield is just mind boggling.

[kygman]

This is one event I don't ever want to live through again! We are in Mayfield and live in a 110 yr old double brick house and we felt it shake!! We knew it hit downtown but thought the closest it got to us was about 6 blocks north. We drove to Paducah to get some things today and saw huge trees uprooted 2 blocks from our house! The four churches in the downtown area were all demolished. Every time I see pictures or video of the First Presbyterian, where we went, I cry. My parents were married in that church in 1946. Now it's nothing but a pile of rubble. Post Office destroyed as was most of downtown. One of two water towers is down. We have no water and no electricity. Looking at at least a couple weeks to get things online again.
I saw a video of a live feed on Facebook of some women at work at the candle factory here (if you've ever used a Glade scented candle, it may have come from Mayfield), trapped in the collapsed building, begging for help.
Please keep us all in your thoughts and prayers. Not only the citizens but the families of those who died and also for the linemen, EMTs, Police, Fire Department, state, county and city road departments and all others involved in the rescue and recovery going on.

[Mr. In-Between]

Originally Posted by censusdata

There are two swaths of catastrophic damage across KY right now. One runs from SW corner in Fulton Co up the I-69 to W KY Pky corridor, ending around Rough River Lake. Towns like Mayfield, Benton, Princeton, Dawson Springs, Earlington, and Hartford suffered EF4 or EF5 type extreme damage throughout. A second storm formed later and further south, hitting Ft Campbell, Lafayette, Pembroke, Elkton, Bowling Green, Cave City, Horse Cave, and ending N of Campbellsville.

This is quite a remarkable event. I worried about you last night, because as i recall you're out that way. Very glad to see you didn't die. I hope kygman checks in soon, too.

Yeah, as more and more news comes in, this is shaping up to be one of the most powerful tornados in history. EF5 damage and radar-indicated winds, longest continuous track of a tornado ever recorded, first tornado to hit 4 states (that surprised me; i would have thought the Panhandle would have had that happen a number of times), a debris cloud over 30,000 feet in altitude, a debris field that extended 75 miles down range... it's just a miracle that if we break 100 deaths, it won't be very many more.

I had been watching this coming for quite some days, too. My wife is disabled, and feels vulnerable sometimes, and she already had a bad experience with a tornado when she lived in Crestwood. Her car was unsafe to drive in the winds, and some people who were sheltering in a church helped her inside and stuffed her under a pew. She's tough as hell, but she's also a raging control freak, so it was quite unnerving for her. She doesn't like being at the mercy of weather, so I keep an eye on things and keep her informed. I had just told her last night that it looked as though the system would lose energy by the time it got as far east as us, but that I sure would not want to live in Paducah, and at any rate I would stay up all night and keep an eye on it while she slept.

So I was awake when the sirens went off, and the first thing I saw was that dozens of people were dead in Mayfield and the storm that did the deed appeared to be the one launching an attack on us, dead center. I don't normally worry much about weather, because I know how to prepare thoroughly, and I am very rarely frightened by it. But it was very, very disturbing to sit there and watch that Mayfield storm barreling straight at us for over an hour, and know that there wasn't a damn thing either of us could do but wait in the closet and see how it turned out.

We were very fortunate. The airport south of town was hit hard, and a church a mile west of us was destroyed or at least very badly damaged, but just as it hit our town the rotation stopped (according to the National Weather Service) and it dissipated into a very strong thunderstorm. We had 60+ mph winds for several minutes at our house, and there's still a shoe missing from our porch, but there was no real damage. Other than not getting any sleep.

I'm actually having a very tough day today, though. I'm watching men in Mayfield digging carefully through the rubble of the candle factory, searching for the bodies of their dead wives, who less than 24 hours ago said goodbye and went to work there just like any other night. It's really quite upsetting to me; I feel very, very sad and very fortunate at the same time. That sort of thing is always very hard for me to see.

Here is a graphic showing the tracks of the 4 main tornados.... that's one heck of a lot of Kentucky; as horrible as it is, this could have been sooo much worse.

https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/di...64bf5da2ad.png