LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It has been a year since deadly late-season tornado outbreak roared through Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee and of course, Kentucky. The storm clamed the lives of 81 Kentuckians. Spectrum News 1, went back to western Kentucky to see what a year of rebuilding looks like, talk to those in the communities about resiliency and look ahead to what the future looks like for towns like Mayfield and Dawson Springs.
One year later, candle factory employee says tornado trauma wakes him up at night
MAYFIELD, Ky. — After an EF4 tornado ripped through Mayfield the night of Dec. 10, 2021, Gov. Andy Beshear and many others feared the worst as 110 people were inside a leveled candle factory owned by Mayfield Consumer Products. In the days following, we learned eight employees died. Those who made it out alive are grateful, but life one year later is far from what it once was.
John Lawson, a welder, had just moved from Nevada to Mayfield to be closer to his son and grandchildren. Having just moved to a new city and with Christmas bills looming, he took a temporary job at Mayfield Consumer Products. He showed up to work his fifth shift at the factory, unaware of what was about to happen.
“I had just moved here, so I didn’t have the cable turned on at my property yet. Since I was busy moving, I wasn’t listening to the radio. I showed up to work. We were there for about an hour and there was a tornado warning,” said Lawson.
As he sits in his home recounting the memories almost a year later, the pain is still fresh in his mind.
“Every time it’s raining outside, I’m scared. My wife is afraid I’m going to end up having a heart attack and dying here because it bothers me so bad,” said Lawson. “I wake up in the middle of the night from screams and listening to people. The things I heard while I was buried wake me up at night.”
Lawson is part of a class action lawsuit filed against his former employer, Mayfield Consumer Products. The suit alleges employees were told they needed to stay at work that night or risk termination.
“Another tornado warning happened and, this time, everybody was starting to argue saying ‘We want to go home.’ They told us if we went home, we would be fired. We all went back to this hallway. They were doing roll calls, and that’s when the tornado hit.”
Speaking with our Spectrum News 1 crews in the days following the tornado last year, company spokesperson Bob Ferguson said that was not the case.
“If an employee felt it was in the best interest to leave, they certainly had that option. Most of the training in bad weather is not to have people get in cars or expose themselves to a storm. Most of the training is around sheltering in the safest place that can be found,” said Ferguson in Dec. 2021.
Those are comments attorneys representing former Mayfield Consumer Products employees continue to reference.
“After the destruction of the candle factory, Mayfield Consumer Products basically called them liars in the media. We also brought claims for defamation of character and false light for those who spoke in the media about this happening and then Mayfield Consumer Products, through a spokesperson, called them liars essentially,” said Willaim Nefzger, one attorney representing former Mayfield Consumer Products employees.
Amos Jones, one of the other attorneys representing former Mayfield Consumer Products employees, says there has been little progress in the judicial process a year after the tornado.
“Nine months after we filed it, we are still waiting on decisions on where it will be heard, whether it will be heard and to what extent it will be heard. We are arguing this case belongs in a federal court. Mayfield Consumer Products, the owner of this candle factory, moved to remove it to a federal court, and that’s where we have been delayed for all of these months,” said Jones.
As they await a decision on that, Jones and his co-counsel filed a federal charge to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that Mayfield Consumer Products is retaliating against former employees who cooperated with an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation. OSHA fined Mayfield Consumer Products $40,000 for violations of federal labor law.
“Mayfield Consumer Products, after we filed the lawsuit on behalf of our clients, responded by cutting their workers’ compensation benefits. Now, we have clients experiencing medical expenses that would normally be paid by workers’ compensation being denied because those benefits have been cut,” said Nefzger.
Employees were trapped for hours in the candle factory’s rubble, which is now nothing more than a slab of concrete as Mayfield Consumer Products rebuilds at a new site about 15 miles away. At last update, the plan was for the new site to open sometime next year.
Lawson said he suffered three fractured disks, a bulged disk and, in just a few days, will undergo shoulder surgery to remove a bone spur.
“Every bit of the treatment the doctors recommend, the workman’s comp denies it. We have to appeal to it and fight and scratch,” said Lawson. “If they had taken care of my shoulder a year ago, I might not have had to have surgery.”
Riddled with physical pain, financial stress and emotional trauma, Lawson said his life since the tornado has been nothing short of a nightmare.
“It isn’t just Dec. 11. It has been every night since that has happened. I’m sure a lot of us will have to deal with this forever,” said Lawson.
Spectrum News 1 reached out to Mayfield Consumer Products and attorneys representing the company. We could not schedule an interview before the disclosed deadline for this story. We will bring an update if they respond.
Mayfield woman still searching for a home one year after tornado
It’s been the hardest year of Sondra Collins’ life, yet the most hopeful. One year since she lost her mother and her home in a pair of tragedies, hope lives on.
No one knew how bad it was until after the sun came up. Mayfield, a town of ten thousand people, was devastated by an EF4 tornado on Dec. 10, 2021.
It would take days to count the dead, weeks to tally the damage and months more to clear the debris.
“The tornado come right over me,” Collins recalled. She said she’s been doing better these past few months.
Like thousands of Kentuckians, 180 mile-per-hour winds destroyed Collins’ home. It was one blow precluded by another. The catastrophic storm came just a few days after Collins’ mother died from Covid.
“They had her in the hospital for a month, and she never did come back out,” Collins explained.
She’s been grieving and living with her sister ever since. “I don’t think I’ve experienced what I’ve should have experienced, losing my mom and then this happening and being displaced.”
The storm cut a path of destruction through the Graves County town. It also threw Mayfield into a housing crisis, especially for residents like Collins who were renting.
For affected residents without family or close friends, there were few options other than finding a new home elsewhere.
Twelve months later, Collins still has hope for the future. Not only is she working again, she’s part of a building project for lower income renters like herself.
It’s a development offering low-interest mortgages for people who lost their homes to the tornado.
“It’s starting to inspire people now because for so long we didn’t have anything.” Collins said. She’s applied to a similar home-buying program in another neighborhood and part of that process is having steady employment.
“I got this job to work so I could get a home to pay the taxes and stuff… but Samaritan’s Purse is the one that I’m going through to get my home,” Collins explained.
It’s been one year since Collins lost her mom and one year since she lost her home. Every day, she works to rebuild her life and every day it gets a little better.
“I’m scared and I’m nervous… but I know God is sending this to me,” she said. “This is where he wants me to be.”
A tornado destroyed their home and now they’re starting over
MAYFIELD, Ky. — The house had stood on North Sixth Street in Mayfield for 96 years and kept Royce Buck and his wife safe. That was true even as the devastating storm in Dec. 2021 sheared off the roof and upended their lives.
After the skies cleared, Buck wasn’t sure what would become of the place filled with nearly two decades of memories. “I don’t think it can be saved,” he said after the tornado tore through Mayfield last year. “I haven’t talked to anybody yet, but as I look around, I just can’t imagine what it would take to put it back.”
The view from a window in Royce Buck’s Mayfield home, two days after it was struck by a tornado. (Spectrum News 1/Erin Kelly)
Nearly a year after the EF4 tornado forever changed the neighborhood, it’s hard for Buck to come back to the empty lot where his house used to be. A battered magnolia tree is all that’s left. “I don’t know that we’re still in shock, but it feels that way every time I look around,” Buck said in November.
Buck’s law office that was walking distance from his home is gone, too. Without the landmarks he once knew downtown, he sometimes gets lost. “It’s barren,” Buck said. “There’s nothing here. Other than the few houses behind me, which is to the east, if you look to the west, it’s just barren. You can see all the way across this community.”
About 11 miles away, Buck and his wife are starting over, renovating a home in Fancy Farm. He’s hoping to incorporate some bricks salvaged from the rubble of his former home.
Royce Buck and his wife are preparing to move into a home under renovation in Fancy Farm. (Spectrum News 1/Erin Kelly)
The move-in date keeps getting pushed back, but when people ask for an update, Buck and his wife tell them, “three more weeks.”
Buck embroidered the phrase on a cap he wears walking around the new house. “When we really thought it was going to be about three weeks, then delays would occur, so it’s just gotten to be a joke between my wife and I that we’ll move in, in about three weeks,” he said. “I came home one day, and she had ordered a couple of caps with ‘three more weeks’ on it and so whether it’s going to be this coming weekend, or three more weeks, I’m not really for sure, but it’ll happen one of these days.”
Buck knows they’re fortunate to start over. It’s already feeling like home, but the future of the community they left behind is harder to picture. “It will always be Mayfield,” said Buck. “It’s just going to look a little different.”
He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to it.
Habitat For Humanity nearly finished rebuilding its first home in Dawson Springs
DAWSON SPRINGS, Ky — Brick by brick, board by board. The small town of Dawson Springs is rebuilding a year after one of the worst tornadoes in Kentucky history.
Organizations like Habitat for Humanity started working on new construction as soon as the rubble and debris were cleared.
Days before the one-year anniversary of the twister, they are nearly finished with two homes. One of which will go to Jerry Vandiver.
“Oh, it feels wonderful, great. I can’t explain how happy I am,” Vandiver said.
Vandiver was home on the night of Dec. 10. He took cover in the center of his house as the tornado passed overhead.
“And the wind came through the back door, blew all the windows out, and it actually hit me but it was not suction, just the wind,” Vandiver said.
He survived, but the county condemned his house, and it had to be torn down. Vandiver’s been living with family and friends since.
Heath Duncan, the Executive Director for the Habitat For Humanity Pennyrile Region, explains this is a sign of the progress happening in the town of less than 2,500.
“To get the first one under our belt, it feels really good. I know it feels really good for Jerry. He’s super excited. He just left her a few minutes ago, and he’s almost beside himself and that makes me happy,” Duncan said.
Duncan says over 700 homes, basically half of the town, were destroyed. They have nine homes currently under construction and plan to do more than twice that amount in 2023.
Gov. Andy Beshear will visit Vandiver’s home on Saturday, the anniversary of the tornado.
Habitat For Humanity Pennyrile Region has partnered with several organizations to do this work done. This includes Tim and Marcy Sheaffer who run a mission, The Call to Build, which builds homes for people affected by natural disasters.
The Sheaffers stay in a travel trailer about half an hour away and have been working in Dawson Springs for eight months. They’ll leave at the end of the month and return in April to start on the next home.
In the six years they’ve been married, the Sheaffers have lived in nine states.
Tim, a craftsman by trade, can manage volunteers throughout the project.
A role that Duncan says is hard to come by in the disaster recovery and nonprofit world. But it’s one that’s so important to helping people like Jerry Vandiver.
“We’ve had literally thousands of volunteers here all year helping Long Term Recovery and Habitat and that’s great but we need some skilled folks around to help lead those volunteers and show them what to do and that’s one of Tim’s roles,” Duncan said.
It will be a long road toward a full recovery in Dawson Springs. But as you make your way up and down neighborhood streets, you can see examples of what is being done to rebuild.
“I’m very thankful for all the family and friends that let me stay, but you know, I’d had my own place so long that I’m ready to be home again,” Vandiver said.
Fourteen people died in Dawson Springs on the night of Dec. 10, 2021. They debuted a memorial for those lost earlier this year at the Dawson Springs City Park.
One year later, Blue Holler Brew Supplies rebuilding after tornado
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Hundreds of businesses across Bowling Green were unrecognizable last year after the EF3 tornado ripped through the city. That’s when the community rallied, picking up the pieces to begin the rebuilding process.
Chris Karraker was one of those people who experienced firsthand how the community came together.
Karraker always knew he’d be working behind the bar someday, and that passion inspired him to open up his own business in 2015.
“Well, I love cooking. People don’t realize when you know all the alcohol and all the stuff that you add into it tastes like, it’s just like cooking,” Karraker said.
Karraker is the owner of Blue Holler Brew Supplies on 31 W Bypass. It’s a business that is well known to the Bowling Green community, but in Dec. 2021 that business was unrecognizable.
“This section of the roof was peeled up and thrown over there. It was just that wall and that wall and then everything was sitting in a pile,” Karraker said. “I had signs from other companies sitting in the taproom.”
The EF3 tornado’s 150 mph winds had ripped the roof and walls off the Bowling Green brewery.
Karraker wasn’t the only one dealing with loss. The entire 31 W Bypass had been leveled.
“The bypass, the most iconic street in the City of Bowling Green, along with Russellville Road and Nashville Road. I mean it literally ripped right through our community and went all the way over to the Corvette plant,” Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott said.
That’s when the community stepped up.
“There was one of my customers that works at Home Depot. He was like ‘Hey man tell me the Holler made it?’” Karraker said. “I was like no. That’s what we’re doing now, getting stuff to start clean and he told me he paid for everything out of his pocket. Before I got to the Holler, I had a family who called me and said, '‘Hey man, where are you? We’re here in your parking lot waiting to help you get cleaned up.”
It’s the same community who made Blue Holler what it is today.
“I came here every day for three months after that. I got emotional every day. I built this place,” Karraker said. “I physically built everything that was in here and the community built the rest of it.”
In the meantime, Karraker is still serving up drinks at his other bar, The Office at 912. He’s anxiously waiting for the day Blue Holler Brew Supplies opens up their doors once again.
“I hope it turns back into what it was,” Karraker said. “I mean, like I said, if you knew nobody in Bowling Green and somebody told you to go to the Holler, you knew everyone in this place before you left.”
Blue Holler Brew Supplies hopes to be back open and running come Jan. 2023.