Kentucky city devastated by tornadoes out of a ‘horror movie’

LONDON, Ky. — On Sunday morning in a small Kentucky city, the sun shone and birds chirped.

They provided an incongruent backdrop to a scene that looked like a war zone. Just two days before, a fierce tornado carved a 16-mile path of destruction through Laurel County, and in its county seat of London, the damage was clear: roofs ripped from homes, tree limbs sheared off, cars left as twisted hunks of metal. And several residents dead.

By afternoon, the Sunshine Hills neighborhood of London was filled with the cacophonous beeping of backhoes, accompanied by an army of faith-based volunteers.

Those volunteers were among the many people in London, a city of 8,000 about 80 miles south of Lexington, who worked together over the weekend to help not only those in need but the whole community as it tried to process the disaster. Amid the grief and devastation, ensuring displaced people got the necessary supplies and assistance was top of mind for many.

“It didn’t seem right to be sitting at home with our property being untouched with so many people struggling,” said Hannah Clark, who lives in neighboring Pulaski County but came to London to volunteer.

The tornado was part of a storm system that tore through the central United States starting Friday, killing at least 28 people. Of those, 19 died in Kentucky, all but two in Laurel County. Missouri was also hit hard: Seven people died in that state, including five in St. Louis.

Most of the victims in Laurel County were killed in Sunshine Hills, according to Gilbert Acciardo, a public affairs official for the county sheriff’s office, who did not give an exact number. Many of them were older, ranging in age from 50 to 70.

Vanessa Mullins is one of the Sunshine Hills residents whose home was destroyed. Late Friday, the sound of a thundering whistle rumbled through the hilly subdivision, she said, and she huddled in the bathroom with her son and her boyfriend. The house shook, shampoo bottles fell, dust fluttered from the ceiling — and then, quiet.

They opened the door, and much of the house was gone. Somebody else’s washing machine cylinders and mattresses were in the kitchen. The bedroom had no walls.

Then, they said they heard plaintive cries from a neighbor whose foot was so badly injured that it was later amputated. And they saw that their next-door neighbors, an older couple who used to save apples from their tree for Mullins’ pet pigs, had been killed — having died in each other’s arms.

“It was like the worst horror movie you could imagine,” said Mullins’ boyfriend, Dewayne Broughton.

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