US residents measure damage after series of tornadoes: “75% of Kentucky city completely wiped off the map”
Residents in the United States are assessing the damage after several states were hit by a series of tornadoes last weekend. The mayor of the small town of Dawson Springs, located in western Kentucky, said that “about 75 percent of the city has been completely wiped off the map and replaced by chaos.” Amid that chaos, rescue services are now massively searching for survivors.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, it’s horrible,” Mayor Chris Smiley said. The severe weather last weekend mainly swept through the central and southern parts of the US. Fifty tornadoes swept through eight US states as a result of the storm. The National Weather Service reports this.
The state of Kentucky has already registered 64 deaths, but many victims are still under the rubble. Authorities fear that the death toll will only rise in the coming days. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear clarified that the fatalities already identified are between five months and 86 years old.
“War Zone”
The rescue services trying to search for survivors on the spot describe the regions as “war zone”. Hundreds of people are still missing. The search continues, but the hope of finding survivors shrinks by the hour.
In the town of Mayfield, which was very badly hit by the storm, hundreds of the total 3,000 inhabitants would also no longer have a home. “Nearly the entire town is displaced at this point,” said Nick Bailey, head of the local rescue team.
“Some places are just gone. You would go door to door checking people are safe, but there are just no doors left,” Beshear said. In addition, tens of thousands of households are currently without electricity and there is “a mountain of rubble”. The governor also emphasizes that the local morgues no longer have a place to store all the bodies. Coroners from all over the state should therefore step in.
In total, tornadoes were registered last weekend in eight states, namely in Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee. Kentucky was the hardest hit.
