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Princeton, Kentucky’s Shawn Hicks (right) directs family members and volunteers as they search for salvageable items in what is left of his home following Friday’s tornado.
Jason Thrash said it was like turning a corner. Literally.
Driving into a picturesque Princeton, Kentucky neighborhood – modern, two-story brick homes overlooking a golf course – he saw homes showing very little signs of storm damage; just a few roofs with some missing shingles, some limbs on the ground and some trash moving in the breeze.
It all looked pretty normal. That is until he pulled onto a different street.
“You drive up and you think, ‘We must be in the wrong area because there’s been no storm here,’ then, all of a sudden, you top the hill or turn the corner and you see devastation. Nothing but devastation,” he said.
Thrash, part of the pastoral team at Marion’s Cornerstone church, has been making daily trips to Western Kentucky areas hit by Friday’s tornadoes with supplies and teams of volunteers, working through churches in the area to identify families in need of assistance. He said he will always remember the change of perspective.
“When you turn the corner and actually see the area of damage and you are able to perceive just how vast and how far it goes – as far you can see, there is damage. I’ve been around tornadoes before, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
At least five tornadoes swept through Western Kentucky, leaving at least 74 dead and destroying more than 1,000 structures.
Thrash and his team was on their way to help the Hicks family of Princeton, a community of 6,300 about 12 miles east of Eddyville and Interstate 24. Most of the family was away from home when the tornado struck. One child and his grandmother survived by taking shelter in the basement.
“The tornado pulled the ceiling off of most of the basement, but it didn’t pull it off of that bedroom,” Thrash reported.
Volunteers from Marion’s Cornerstone Church survey damage in a Princeton, Kentucky neighborhood following Friday’s tornado.
The rest of the house was gone.
“Since then I’ve tried to use Google Maps to see what it used to look like, but I couldn’t figure out which house it was because I had no idea what to look for,” Thrash said. “This was a solid brick home. I know it had a huge brick fireplace because we’ve been picking up those bricks. There wasn’t a single wall standing except for a three-foot section that had some plumbing in the wall. That was the only part of the structure that was left.”
Thrash said one family used to own a large box trailer, filled with lawnmowers.
“All that was left was one door in the top of a tree and three pieces of aluminum wrapped around a tree. They don’t know where the rest of the trailer is,” he said.
Nearby, the storm ripped the sod off the golf course.
Thrash said his team even had trouble finding the exact location of the Hicks’ home.
“They told us to look for a certain car and a truck,” Thrash recalled. “We found them in a pile out front, but turns out we were at the wrong house; everything just looks the same, everywhere.”
He said teams from the church are not only transporting donated supplies, but they are also helping victims in rummaging through debris, looking for salvageable items, mementos and memories.
Thrash said the residents are grateful for help.
“I heard one man say, ‘I don’t even know these people, and here they are, going through my personal things.’ But then he said he was glad they were there because he didn’t know how they’d get it done with the volunteers,” he explained.
He called the work “overwhelming.”
“Even after working four or five hours, you feel like you haven’t done anything because everything looks the same. There is just stuff everywhere and you have to figure out what to do with it. You just start making piles.”
Thrash and others from the church – as well as congregations from across the region – continue to do what they can to help victims in Plainfield, Mayfield and other Kentucky communities.
“We are just happy to help in any way we can. This is an opportunity for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus. If this were to happen in Marion, we hopefully would have people come and help us. We’re all just one big family and when someone is in need to jump in and do what you can,” he said.
A drone view of the path a tornado took through parts of Edwardsville from Brockmeier Sod Farm to the Glen Echo subdivision after it hit the Amazon warehouse on Friday. Video by David Carson, dcarson@post-dispatch.com
This is the front page of The Southern Illinoisan from May 30, 1982. A tornado ripped through the region the day before, killing 13 people and injuring more than 200.
The tornado touches down near Williamson County Airport on May 29, 1982.
Rescue workers sift through the rubble at the Shawnee Apartments on the west side of Marion on May 29, 1982. Workers were looking for a reported four missing.
A Shawnee Apartment Complex survivor looks through the ruins of his apartment for anything salvageable after a tornado hit May 29, 1982.
People look through the rubble of a home in Energy ruined by the tornado that hit May 29, 1982.
An aerial photo shows the damage done to the Town and Country Shopping Center on the west side of Marion after a tornado ripped through the region on May 29, 1982.
The May 29, 1982, tornado also hit Conant, a Perry County community about five miles southwest of Pinckneyville. The twister tore through this home, dumping a car into the basement.
An aerial photo shows Reynolds Market and a building burning in Carterville after a tornado rolled through the region on May 29, 1982.
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Friday night’s devastating tornado in Western Kentucky touched the SIU football family.
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Here’s a list of ways you can assist families on the ground in places like Mayfield, Kentucky and Dresden, Tennessee as they recover and rebuild from the Dec. 10 tornadoes.
Princeton, Kentucky’s Shawn Hicks (right) directs family members and volunteers as they search for salvageable items in what is left of his home following Friday’s tornado.
Volunteers from Marion’s Cornerstone Church survey damage in a Princeton, Kentucky neighborhood following Friday’s tornado.
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