Devastating tornadoes hit Kentucky and neighboring states
RIP.
At least 70 people are feared dead:
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at a news conference Saturday that the death toll may exceed 100.
“This has been the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history,” Beshear said.
The storms hit a candle factory in Kentucky, an Amazon facility in Illinois and a nursing home in Arkansas. Beshear said about 110 people were in the Mayfield factory when the tornado hit.
Kentucky State Police Trooper Sarah Burgess said search and rescue teams were going through the rubble Saturday but didn’t yet have a number for how many have died.
Tornadoes can strike almost anywhere in the US, although as just about everyone knows, they’re more common in the Great Plains. I hope that all my readers in the area struck by these tornadoes are alive and well and don’t have family or friends who were hit.
Here’s a tiny bit of good news:
Among those who helped rescue the trapped workers were inmates from the nearby Graves County Jail, she said.
“They could have used that moment to try to run away or anything, but they did not. They were there, helping us,” she said. Elsewhere in Graves County, the landscape was a scene of devastation with uprooted trees, downed utility poles, a store destroyed and homes severely damaged.
NOTE: Please see this 2007 post for some thoughts of mine on tornadoes and other natural disasters versus human-caused ones, as well as my reaction as a child on learning about the damage tornadoes could cause.
I hope prosecutors will consider the actions of these jail inmates when their cases come up.
Starting the countdown clock until this is blamed on global warming. Ding ding we have a winner.
“And climate change may also have played a role.
Research reveals that climate change may be causing tornado alley to shift East, out of traditional tornado alley of the Great Plains and into parts of the Mississippi Valley.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/quad-state-tornado-crossed-four-states-four-hours-leaving-trail-death-rcna8465
I’m a meteorologist and I’ve received a number of tweets from the climate ghouls in the wake of last night’s tornado outbreak.
The best reply was from a DEMOCRAT. I’ll let you read it for yourself: https://twitter.com/colmonelridge/status/1469723460372946952
If you would like more info on last night’s storms, please go here: http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2021/12/the-monster-overnight-tornadoes.html
– and –
here: http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2021/12/random-thoughts-in-aftermath-of.html
I was in the path of the storms and it was one of those strange weather events one could feel in the air even before the storms appeared. Less than 20 miles from several tornado touchdowns, but suffered no harm. Our autos even managed to miss the hailstones that fell in our area.
Thank you for sharing the story of the inmates. That is very heart warming!
Thanks, Mike Smith, for that link to a Democrat telling that leftist off. People who think super cells and large tornado outbreaks are new and the result of “global warming” have no knowledge of past outbreaks.
I read your 2007 post neo and am appalled that a show was broadcast where children were struck down in the midst of their laughter. That’s sick. Any station that broadcast it should have lost their broadcasting license.
SUV drives themselves into crowds watching a parade but tornadoes, those are man-made.
Too soon yet, probably, for relief funds to be posted, but the survivors are going to need a lot of help.
Hi, Rufus. I’m glad you’re all right!
December tornadoes are rare in Kentucky but not unheard of. I was a quarter-mile or so from the tornado that hit Athol KY in the late 1990s or early 2000s (Google is failing me). The weather was unseasonably warm, and then it snowed inches 3 days later.
And this definitely goes beyond political divisions. I have no great love for Illustrious Potentate, but here he is doing exactly what he needs to do for an area that voted against him. He gets my credit for this.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA– one of the eight uniformed services of the United States, the first six being the armed forces), the average lead time for a tornado warning is only 13 minutes– which helps to explain why they are so much more dangerous than hurricanes; people usually have two to three days to prepare for a hurricane or evacuate, given modern weather forecasting. And as Mike Smith noted on his blog, tornadoes that strike at night are particularly bad. I hope the survivors of this outbreak get all the help they will need.
The worst storms I’ve muddled through were all either hurricanes or that New England weather specialty, the nor’easter. Hurricane Hazel, which hit when I was just a little kid, was the most unusual, partly because it moved inland in the Middle Atlantic states and then tracked directly northward into Ontario. Most hurricanes that affect Canada strike the three maritime provinces or Newfoundland and Labrador, so Ontario was not prepared for Hazel in 1954. The ground around Toronto was already full of water from several weeks of unusually heavy rain, and the new rain from Hazel caused the local rivers to flood; “No natural disaster since has led to such a high death toll—81 people—in Canada.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Hazel_in_Canada
At least nobody was blaming hurricanes on global warming in the 1950s.
The Hurricane of 38, the Long Island Express, is likely the most energetic storm to hit the US in more than a century, judging by the massive wind damage so far inland. That’s speaking of raw energy, not complications of flooding due to earlier rains, or a storm camping out as Harvey did.
There was coastal development besides towns, but the dollar value was a fraction of what it is today. So, if it happened today, we’d there TEN TIMES the horror.
Imagine something scrubbing Martha’s Vineyard clean. Given the real estate prices….
Used to vacation with family on Cape Cod back maybe in the late Fifties. Was here in April. The little Cape Cod….a curiosity. Big stuff all around.
Good you dodged some bullets Rufus!
https://samaritanspurse.org/article/deadly-tornado-outbreak-brings-heartache-across-multiple-states/?utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=m_YYND-B21V&utm_content=KY_AR-Tornadoes&msclkid=e66ebe3e14cc1d037a1edf8b977336dc&utm_term=samaritan%27s%20purse
This is a dark state weapon deployed by the deep state.
Apparently, in the early days of America, some settlers bought land from the Indians. The Indians said that they had not used the land, as there was a demon in the river.
Oh, how the settlers laughed at that ‘primitive superstitution’.
A meteorologist pointed out that the shape of the river’s banks allowed wind/rain to funnel down a pathway, periodically leading to very high velocity destructive winds.
SUCH a primitive superstitution!
Thanks, jon baker. I should have thought of Samaritan’s Purse. They’re already on the road with assistance.
I am beyond disgusted with comments from Biden and the FEMA director to the effect that the intensity of these storms is caused by “climate change.” Could they not at least let the dead be identified before going political?
@ Mike Smith – thanks for the links to your blog.
Here’s one from today with interesting information, especially for those of us who share Kate’s feelings in re President Brandon.
http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2021/12/no-friday-night-was-not-largest-tornado.html
http://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2021/12/why-i-dont-recommend-red-cross-for.html
“The reason is that they take disaster donations and put them into their operating pot and may or may not spend the money on the disaster for which the money was donated. There have been a number of scandals with regard to this practice, including during Hurricane Sandy.
We prefer the Salvation Army’s Disaster Relief Service.”
Salvation Army had always been our preference as well, outside of contributions to our own church’s Humanitarian Services, but now that they’ve jumped on the Woke bandwagon, I’m deferring my general support.
However, I trust (at least, hope) they are not yet apportioning their funds by intersectional-identity and oppressor-ranking, so maybe they are okay for this emergency action.
I will move Samaritan’s Purse up on my list in their place (h/t jon baker).
We were very impressed with Samaritan’s Purse in 2020, especially given the way that Cuomo politicized his extremely disrespectful response to their very charitable actions during the beginning of the Covid crisis.
Had he used their portable hospital for the infected instead of moving them into nursing homes, many more senior citizens would have survived.
Good news from Kentucky. The Epoch Times reports that at the candle factory, 90 of 110 employees have been located and are alive. They huddled in the central corridor, which was a tornado shelter, and after the storm passed, they left. With phones out and homes destroyed, it took a couple of days to find them.
AesopFan, so far as I can tell, Samaritan’s Purse has not gone “woke” and continues to provide help without regard to anything other than need.
And thanks for the link to Mike Smith’s blog, above. This outbreak was horrible. It was not the worst. Here is a list (h/t A.J. Kaufman, at PJ Media), from NOAA, listing the worst death tolls from tornado outbreaks in the US. You have to go down to #7, Joplin, MO, in 2011, to get a recent one.
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/killers.html