EDDYVILLE, Ky. — Blocked roadways from natural disasters cause hazardous driving conditions and blocks access to homes and businesses for owners and crews to cleanup. 

For 15 years, Mark Breitrick with Promise Land Tree Service has cleared roadways and homes of tree debris caused from some of Mother Nature’s deadliest storms. With Christmas right around the corner, his work kept him home in Lyon County due to the deadly tornadoes that ravaged Western Kentucky Dec. 10 and 11, 2021. 

Just over two weeks ago the EF4 tornado hit Lyon County, among several others in Western Kentucky. Clearing debris is still underway a major task as 141 homes were damaged and up to 55 of those were completely destroyed, County Executive Judge Wade White told Spectrum News 1 via a text message.

In addition to damaged homes, there are many damaged and destroyed trees. 

Breitrick, co-owner of Promise Land Tree Service, said the majority of business includes clearing roadways and tree debris after a natural or human-made disaster.

“You name it we’ve been there. Started in [Hurricane] Katrina, went to all the storms of Florida, Hurricane Sandy, last year we were in Iowa, the derecho,” Breitrick explained.

“People don’t realize, they think it’s just brush on the side of the roads, but if you go off the road just a little bit, those are spears and some pretty dangerous things that you are flying right by. So tell everyone to be safe driving when they are driving out there and looking around,” Breitrick told Spectrum News 1.

Breitrick and his wife Promis, the namesake for the company, have owned Promise Land Tree Service for 15 years.

“It’s a rough business. You learn the hard way with cuts and bruises and almost missing fingers,” he said.

This isn’t Breitrick’s first time in Lyon County. He said his company came to the area because of the ice storm of 2009.

“And believe it or not, we were still doing, just before this tornado, we were still working on some trees damaged by the ice storm, 11 years later,” he explained.

Even though Breitrick has worked in disaster areas across the United States, this particular cleanup hits close to home.

“We moved here in ’09 when they had an ice storm event… fell in love with the county, and sold our house in Wisconsin, moved here, and been here since,” Breitrick said.

Lyon County has contracted Promise Land Tree Service to clear three miles of roads, about 20 roadways in the area, Breitrick said. It’s his first contract in his own backyard.

“It’s always hard. Tornadoes are hard. You see people’s lives scattered out, around the ground. You’re out picking it up and throwing it away; so that’s hard,” he said.

“So that’s hard, hard to swallow,” Breitrick said while getting choked up. “And when it’s at home; it’s different…these are our friends. These are our neighbors. So we’ll do our best job we can.”

Breitrick told Spectrum News 1 that his family is lucky. They are all safe and so is their house. 

“My wife and kids, we were under the house with our softball and baseball helmets on and prepared for the worst,” he said. 

However, he added many of his neighbors weren’t as lucky.

“And soon as we were able to come out, we started preparing to get to work,” he said.

Some of the work Breitrick said only his crew can do because sometimes equipment can’t handle the job at hand.

“We’ve had jobs where we’ve tried to send cranes and tried to send people, and it ended up we just had to go up and do it by hand,” he explained.

For example, he said his crew went right into one Lyon County’s woman’s bedroom, fired up a chain saw, and cut a tree off of her bed.

“Yea, she’s a previous customer. I’ve done work for them for years. You see retired folks in there looking at their house like, ‘What am I gonna do.’ It’s hard,” he said, while holding back tears. 

That customer survived. Lyon County had one reported death from the EF4 tornado, 98-year-old Evelyn Ratay. 

Sixty days—that’s how long Breitrick told Spectrum News 1 it will take to get the majority of the job done contracted to do in Lyon County. After that, he said, it will be touch-up work.

If you are interested in helping Lyon County with tornado recovery, the county needs volunteers, not donations, Volunteer Coordinator Jenni Frank told Spectrum News 1. If you’re interested to help in any capacity, text her at 270-217-2885.