BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — In western Kentucky, people are helping their neighbors pick up the pieces, and trying to locate people who aren’t accounted for. While the state has seen a lot of tragedy, it’s also seen the best humanity has to offer in the last few days.
Heroes in one Bowling Green neighborhood gave shelter to their neighbors during the deadly storms early Saturday morning, and pulled off a life-saving rescue.
What You Need To Know
- A Bowling Green man opened his home to neighbors who lost theirs after Friday's devastating tornado
- Meadowbrook Circle was ravaged by the twister, but Steven Sawyer's house held up more than most
- Sawyer estimated between 20 and 30 people were sheltered in his basement
- You can help out by donating to the official TeamWKYReliefFund.KY.Gov
Meadowbrook Circle, like so many neighborhoods in Bowling Green, was ravaged by the tornado that came through. but Steven Sawyer’s house held up better than most. He has his family stepped up to help their neighbors in their time of need.
One of those neighbors was Jeremy Hinkle's father, Phil. Jeremy described the current state of his parents’ home.
“This is where my parents’ house… was, yeah. This is the front door, the living room,” Jeremy said, pointing to things that were no longer there. “Right here was the bathroom. Tile, shower and everything, I did the tile on this in April. And then in October they had granite counters put in. Tile floor, brand new stove, brand new dishwasher.”
Almost all of it was gone. Jeremy didn’t know if he’d ever see his dad again after a voice mail he received the morning of the storms.
“The house is gone. Your dad can’t see. Call him. So I was like, what do you mean?” he said.
When he arrived, Jeremy discovered the house was indeed gone. He described what happened to his dad, while his mom was away, out of the country.
“The mirror on the dresser fell down on top of him in the bed. That’s what he woke up to, and all the insulation as you can see,” Jeremy said.
Phil described it from his perspective.
“I was laying in the bed sleeping. Dead sleep. Got woke up. Something hit me in the chest, and, UGH! Couldn’t move my legs. I was pinned in the bed for about 20 minutes,” Phil said. “Then it first hit me, I said, is this the way I’m gonna go, lord? But he pulled me through it.”
He managed to get himself into position to call out.
“And I yelled to my neighbor, help, help!” Phil said. “He came over and put a ladder up there from there to that corner up to that door, and I climbed down, no shoes no nothing.”
Phil joined others in Sawyer’s basement after Sawyer and Sawyer’s son got him down.
“We literally pulled Phil out from underneath a wall,” Sawyer said. “Honestly it’s God, because I had no idea how we were gonna get him down from there on a ladder. But we did.”
Sawyer, his wife and four kids were heroes to many people that early morning.
“They ended up taking in all six of these houses. All of them went to their basement to ride out the storm,” Jeremy said, pointing to houses all along the circle.
Sawyer explained why.
“I had neighbors that were wet and cold, and needed someplace safe, so we just brought people to our basement, and we had a whole bunch of people, and I think seven dogs, two birds and a rabbit,” he said. “There’s not a roof on anybody else’s house, you know, most of their walls aren’t standing. Mine was.”
Sawyer estimated between 20 and 30 people were in his basement.
On Sunday, Phil had some bruised ribs, but he was alive, and so was his dog.
“I said go check on her, she’s probably dead. And there she was just shivering. Yeah, she made it through, too!” he said. “There’s no such thing as luck. If that man upstairs, if he wants you, he’s gonna take you. But my outlook on life is, no matter how bad you think you’ve got it, there’s somebody out there worse off than you are. I’m just glad the Lord pulled me through it. He didn’t want me yet.”
Jeremy added, “He is lucky, and all those days going to church really paid off.”
At the Sawyer house, people Steven has never met were in his backyard helping clear wreckage, just like he helped that morning, and just like Kentuckians are doing across the state.
“I mean, it’s overwhelming, honestly. First of all, God showed mercy to us last night. You know, he spared our house, he spared our lives, my neighbors,” he said.
Jeremy said he had more than a dozen people help come clear the wreckage at his dad’s house.
“Yesterday it was a non-stop stream of cars coming to gawk and take video. And today it was non-stop people coming to help,” he said.
There is a direct fund set up to help people in western Kentucky. That's at TeamWKYReliefFund.KY.Gov