'I'm alive. The house is gone.' Harrowing stories from those who survived deadly Kentucky tornadoes
The night of Dec. 10, 2021, tornadoes ripped across Western Kentucky, as well as parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Southern Indiana and Tennessee, and destroyed towns and leveled homes. In Kentucky, it killed more than 70 people, making it one of the deadliest tornadoes to ever hit the commonwealth.
From the collapse of a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, to residents trapped in their apartments and others taking shelter in their basements, many harrowing tales of survival have come out of the devastation from the December tornadoes. Some are accounts of rescues, while others made it with the power of luck.
These are a collection of stories from people who survived.
How to help Kentucky tornado victims:Donate to relief funds, supplies and blood drives
Marshall County residents narrowly escape
For five minutes, Angie Stanfield’s fiancé, Tim, thought she was dead.
The couple had only lived in Kentucky’s Marshall County for four months, and Stanfield had been planning to return to Illinois, their former home and where Tim was over the weekend, on Friday night.
But with a catastrophic storm coming, she opted to avoid the exposed highway and stay in their pristine, white house in a lovely neighborhood of Benton, Kentucky.
At 9:40 p.m. CST, she sheltered in place underneath a stairwell, surrounded by interior walls and clutching a pillow. She was watching the news on her phone and speaking with Tim from her Apple Watch, and then she heard a broadcast say a tornado was about to hit.
At “9:44 and a half, I heard the train,” she said, echoing a common description of a tornado’s arrival.
At that moment, she thought she was going to die.
Her call with Tim was disconnected, and she lost consciousness. When she came to, she could feel battering rain.
Almost their entire home — roof, walls, everything but the hardwood and tile floors — had been swept away. The washer and dryer flew 200 feet, as did the bulk of the staircase she was under.
The stump of that staircase, however, remained, shielding her.
Disoriented and panicked without her glasses, which had come off, she ran across the street, looking for help from a neighbor as the sky continued to open up with lightning and rain.
At 9:50 p.m., she called Tim.
“All he was doing was sobbing on the phone,” she said. “All I could say is, ‘I’m alive. The house is gone. I’m alive. The house is gone.’”
Read the full story:2 deaths, total devastation and narrow escapes after Kentucky tornado tortures this county
Mayfield candle factory workers recount devastation
Valeria Yanis, a mother of two, was working a late shift at Mayfield’s candle factory as the tornado barrelled straight at them.
Employees rushed to one of the bathrooms for cover, she said. The lights went out. The noise intensified. She hid under a water fountain.
Attorney:Survivors of Kentucky candle factory destroyed by tornado are suing the company
“We couldn't see anything. Everyone was panicking,” she said. “Everything fell on us. Roof, metal, and rocks. We were all trapped.”
She found a tunnel with two others and was able to crawl outside. Of the 110 people inside, roughly 40 had survived, been found, or rescued, officials said.
Another surviving employee, Chelsea Logue, said she’d just re-started there two weeks ago after previously working at the factory. On Friday night, she said managers lined people in the bathroom and another area shelter.
She said they were in the area about 15 minutes before the tornado hit. There was a “really big boom,” she said.
How she crawled out exactly, she doesn’t know.
Dawson Springs residents thrown from homes, trapped in apartments
Carlyn Morrow has done this before. On April 27, 2011 — her adult daughter still remembers the day — Morrow and her husband lost their trailer to a tornado in Cullman, Alabama. A Dawson Springs native, Morrow decided to return home to be closer to family.
During the pandemic, however, she found herself homeless in her hometown.In August, she was able to secure an apartment in a low-income housing complex. She was in her living room Friday night just before the tornado hit.
Her daughter barked at her to come to the bathroom, but it wasn’t until the second time her daughter yelled that Morrow actually retreated; within two minutes, the tornado had arrived, and a car flew into the living room, where Morrow had been. She credits her daughter, Samantha, her "hero," with saving her life.
Morrow and her family were quickly transported to Dawson Springs High School early Saturday morning, and were then driven to Pennyrile Forest State Resort Park, which was untouched by the tornado.
The vacation spot is a refuge. Each night since Friday, 111 displaced residents of Dawson Springs — a town of 2,500 — have spent their time here in the peaceful park. They’re in lodges, cottages and on cots in conference rooms.
Even at the park, though, they can’t escape the nightmarish terror of Friday night, when their roofs and dreams were ripped apart, leaving their futures to hang in an uncertain balance.
Sammy Webb, 50, spent his Monday afternoon sitting in his wheelchair in the doorway to the room he’s staying in. He likes to be near the outdoor walkway so he can greet those who pass by.
Webb recently lived in Paducah, but damage to his residence there caused him to move to Dawson Springs, in the same apartment complex as Morrow, only a couple of weeks ago. During the tornado, trees crashed through the walls and he feared he’d fall through an open window. He was trapped.
He estimated that he was stuck in the madness for 15 terrible minutes before being rescued, but the experience has lasted much longer.
“I have nightmares,” he said. “I don’t sleep at night. I’m constantly watching the skies for more storms coming by. (When) the storm was over with, all I could hear was people hollering and screaming and crying for help.”
Many can't sleep, said Debra Koelm, 23.
Koelm is staying at the lodge with her family, including her sister and 2-year-old niece, each of whom was thrown from their home by the tornado and buried in dirt before being rescued. Koelm was awakened Monday by that same niece, who told her aunt: “I wanna go back home. I don’t wanna lose my home.”
“It broke me down,” Koelm said, standing alongside her 4-year-old daughter, Marya. “I didn’t know what to say. All I could say was, ‘Baby girl, you don’t have a home. It’s gone. But you will get a new one eventually.’”
In Memoriam:Remembering those who died in the devastating Kentucky tornadoes
Back at Pennyrile, Koelm and Marya enjoyed a serene moment Monday as they strolled down from their temporary apartment toward the park’s centerpiece: a scenic lake. Marya wanted to skip rocks and look at a waterfall.
As Koelm thought of and discussed the devastation that her family, herself and her community had experienced, she teared up. She spoke of the irreparable damage to the neighborhood she grew up in; she spoke of her sister’s neighbor, an incredibly kind woman, who was still missing; she spoke of helping her family find a permanent place to stay. So many had lost so much.
Bowling Green family devastated by tornado
Selveta Besic and her daughter were asleep Friday night when the tornado began barreling its way through their Creekwood neighborhood in Bowling Green, starting at the edge of her brother's street less than a half-mile away.
In an upstairs bedroom of their townhome, she threw herself on top of her 9-year-old daughter as winds ripped away the roof above them. They slid to the ground floor and sheltered inside a bathroom.
Within seconds the twister moved on.
Outside, car alarms throughout the subdivision blared and the pouring rain failed to drown out the screams of children in the street searching for their parents. Besic kept calling her brothers — twins huddled with their wives and children just down the road.
They wouldn't pick up.
Frantic with worry, she carried her daughter as she ran through the storm-damaged streets toward their home, arriving to see little of the house left. Their neighbor's was completely flattened.
Bodies were already being pulled from the rubble.
As the rain continued, so did the search for her sister-in-law, who was missing in the chaos of the tornado. She was later found lifeless behind the home, clutching her newborn.
"We were a family of 21, now it's 16," she said Tuesday afternoon.
Bremen couple hid in basement, coal mine
Logan Sesnan, 30, waited for an insurance adjuster Tuesday outside the two walls left standing of what used to be his and his fiancé's home in Bremen. Neither were home on Friday when the tornado that pummeled Mayfield cut a half-mile swath through this tiny rural community.
Sesnan said his fiancé went to a friend’s house to hide in the basement when things got hairy. And Sesnan said he was in the safest place imaginable during a deadly storm — the underground coal mine where he works.
He didn’t even know the storm hit until his shift ended. “As soon as I got out, I had a bunch of missed calls and I knew it (the house) was gone.”
Sesnan said they were able to salvage some clothes and some sentimental items. He was ready to let the house go and start rebuilding.
“As soon as they (the adjuster) gets here, I’m gonna pull her down,” he said.
