DAWSON SPRINGS, Ky. (LEX 18/AP) — The Hopkins County Coroner's Office has identified the 13 people who died after a tornado swept through the small town.
The coroner says the following people have died:
- 74-year-old Mary Alice Adams
- 34-year-old Martin Acree
- 70-year-old Jeff Eckert
- 69-year-old Jennifer Eckert
- 67-year-old Sonya Kaye McChesney
- 65-year-old Jennifer Bruce
- 86-year-old Ernie Akin
- 71-year-old Marsha Hall
- 80-year-old Carol Grisham
- 78-year-old Carolyn Sigler
- 60-year-old Carl Hogan
- 54-year-old John Hale
- 67-year-old Claude Mitchell
On the outskirts of Dawson Springs, another town devastated by the storms, homes were reduced to rubble and trees toppled, littering the landscape for a span of at least a mile.
“It looks like a bomb went off. It’s just completely destroyed in areas,” said Jack Whitfield Jr., the Hopkins County judge-executive.
He estimated that more than 60% of the town, including hundreds of homes, was “beyond repair.”
“A full recovering is going to take years,” he said.
Tim Morgan, a volunteer chaplain for the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Department, said he’s seen the aftermath of tornadoes and hurricanes before, but nothing like this.
“Just absolute decimation. There is an entire hillside of houses that are 3 feet tall now,” he said.
