KENTUCKY — It’s now been six months since an EF-4 tornado devastated the Mayfield and Dawson Springs communities in Western Kentucky.
What You Need To Know
- On Dec. 10, 2021, an EF-4 tornado struck Mayfield and Dawson Springs
- 80 Kentuckians died because of the tornado outbreak
- 24 Kentuckians died in Graves County alone
- Thousands of residents were displaced by the storm. Home building is happening in both communities
No matter where you’ve been in your life, near or far, anyone on the road to recovery has a well-traveled heart. That includes Mayfield resident Larry Nichols.
“I’ve sat and wondered when the day will come when I don’t think about it, but honestly, I don’t know when. I think it will be years down the road and you’ll still think about this probably every day,” Nichols said.
Nichols is one of the few in his neighborhood still left six months after the devastation rolled through.
“It skated over me enough. It took my roof completely off,” he recalled. “In the whole neighborhood there’s maybe, you know, in a block radius or maybe two-block radius, maybe four people at the most [still here].”
Nichols is a contractor by trade and has repaired most of the damage done to his home, but every home and building around him has either been razed or shows signs of heavy damage. Nichols said his next-door neighbor left after the storm and never came back.
“Everything the lady owns is still in her house, I’m pretty sure,” he said. The tornado tore off the roof and collapsed a wall, exposing entire rooms to the elements.
Six months later you can see the neighbors’ clothes on hangers and family photos still stuck to the fridge.
“I don’t know really the story or anything like that but there’s still a lot of people who lost everything,” Nichols said.
Not 20 yards behind Nichols’ back door was the home of three-year-old Jha’lil Dunbar, who was killed when the roof of his home collapsed around him.
Dunbar was one of 24 Kentuckians who died in Graves County. 80 Kentuckians total would die because of the storm.
“It just kills me knowing a lady was laying over there, you know, holding her dead kid,” Nichols recalled. “That’s tough to swallow.”
In Mayfield, you’ll now see homes being built next to lots where homes used to stand, next to houses too badly damaged to be saved yet abandoned up to this point. It’s an unnatural scene created by Kentucky’s deadliest natural disaster.
180 days later, Dawson Springs residents share many of the same views.
“It’s been a journey,” Judy Gregg said. “It’s hard to look around and hardly see anything.”
Gregg has lived in Dawson Springs her entire life. The EF-4 tornado that tore through the center of Mayfield, a city of 10,000, then traveled some 60 miles northeast and made a direct hit to Dawson Springs, a town of 2,500.
Gregg was in her family’s longtime home, huddled in the bathroom. They did not have a basement.
“This would have been the front of our house,” Gregg explained, walking over a dirt patch where her home used to be. It was destroyed by the tornado.
No one in her family was hurt physically, but they were stuck in storm debris for hours into the night.
“There was so much debris around our whole house that we couldn’t get out,” Gregg recalled.
Hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed in her small town.
“It was depressing for a while,” Gregg said.
But there have been signs of hope and good fortune. Gregg was able to purchase another home a few blocks from where she lived for decades. It was damaged as well during the storm, but not condemned, and six months since everything came crashing down, volunteers from Georgia were repairing her roof.
The scars left behind are on the surface and below, and both Gregg’s and Nichols’ hearts weigh heavy in the aftermath.
“You know, still day to day, I struggle with it. My kids, when a thunderstorm rolls through, you know what I mean, they get tense. My ten-year-old definitely, he’s a nervous wreck when a storm blows in or anything like that,” Nichols said.
The last 180 days has taken the residents of Mayfield and Dawson Springs through every emotion. Of all the emotions he’s Nichols has felt, as long as he keeps arriving at “grateful,” Larry Nichols said he’ll be OK.
“It’s kind of mind-boggling to really think about it,” he said. “It kind of feels like it’s only been a few months at times and at times it feels like it’s been a long time.”
The road to recovery is a journey, and how long the journey lasts is unknown. It’s different for everyone. The result for all, Nichols said, is a well-traveled heart.