CHARLESTON, Ky. — It’ll take months for several Kentucky communities to rebuild after a devastating tornado on Sunday, May 26.
Jonathan Skinner says he made the best decision of his young life. The 23-year-old Skinner took a phone call from a family member telling him their home was in the path of a powerful tornado.
“About 20 minutes before it hit and told us to get out,” Skinner told Spectrum News 1. Skinner, his fiancé and newborn baby live near Charleston in Hopkins County. He gathered his family and drove to his father’s home, which has a storm shelter, according to Skinner.
Skinner’s home and several others on a stretch of Highway 109, north of Dawson Springs, were destroyed by 160 mph winds.
”Six that’s pretty much leveled,” Skinner said of the immediate neighbors who lost homes Sunday.
Now the shock of losing his home is coupled with the uncertainty of what comes next.
“My bed was sitting right here,” Skinner said, walking his former bedroom. Three of four walls of this room and the roof were blown off, exposing this side of his home.
Half a mile down Highway 109, Danny Sullivan had a similar phone call and warning and escaped with his son and grandfather.
“From the time I left the house here, all the way to Beulah it was nothing but hail,” Sullivan said.
The tornado spared the house but destroyed the two vehicles left behind, including a project truck he and his grandfather restored just a few months ago.
“On tree limb that went across that one and the square body 1986 C10,” Sullivan said.
The tornado was on the ground for more than an hour by the time it tore through Hopkins County.
It’s an area of the state not densely populated, but that doesn’t matter to the families who lost nearly everything.
Eventually, the storm made it to Ashley Hickey’s home just outside of Earlington and sent a tree crashing into her roof.
“It was like a whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, like it was weird. Kind of when you’re underwater and a lot of water is in your ears and people are moving around in the water,” Hickey told Spectrum News 1.
“We all went over there and we all hid underneath the mattress and just covered everybody,” she added.
Hickey didn’t lose her home, but is still without power. And what’s most unnerving is Hickey says the 2021 EF4 tornado nearly hit her as well.
“It definitely brings me back to December of ’21 and that was the year my baby was born. He was born right after the tornado and it just breaks my heart.” Hickey said her family will wait it out until power is restored.
“It’s overwhelming, all the phone calls and people checking in on you and what can we do and you don’t know what to tell them because you don’t even know what to do yourself,” Jonathan Sullivan said.
At the moment, he can’t stomach the thought of rebuilding here.
“You walk out and you’re like, man, this is a nice place to live. Now, I don’t even want to rebuild here,” Sullivan said.