The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

On December 10, 2021, an EF4 tornado brought devastation to Mayfield, Ky. 

“Since Tuesday of that week, we had been hearing on the local weather stations, that something could possibly be headed our way,” recalls Kathy O’Nan, mayor of Mayfield.

“As that grew closer, and especially on that day, as the day went on, they became more intense.”

As the warnings become more dire, O’Nan knew the forecasters’ plea to take cover was one she should heed.

“I've never been in my basement before for a storm, never,” says O’Nan. “I'm not afraid of a storm. I'm still not afraid of a storm, but this was different. I so firmly believe that meteorologists, the local weather service at Paducah, they saved  lives that night.”

O’Nan says once she knew it was safe, she returned upstairs from her basement and assessed the damage outside.

“I live four blocks from town and had no damage whatsoever, but I heard it, and so I foolishly thought, you know, maybe we've escaped this,” says O’Nan

Then, the calls started to come in, and as first responders began to wade through the rubble, they started to see the scars left behind.

“When Chief Creason came back, he said, ‘Kathy, it's just awful. It's bad,’” she remembers.

“The only light source in downtown was one light, running off the generator at the fire station that had been severely damaged during the tornado,” says David Anderson, CEO of Jackson Purchase Medical Center, the hospital in Mayfield. “So, everyone who was in a structure downtown that was damaged or destroyed, the only place they could see to go was to city hall.”

With some structures still standing but severely damaged, with just yards away other buildings barely touched, the calculus of destruction to this rural town was cruelly selective.

“We have a residential area, just north of it starts right at city hall and extends northward. And all those homes were just gone,” says O’Nan with tears in her eyes. “You couldn't even tell where homes had been, it looked to me like if you've ever opened a box of matches and forced it open, and they all spill out on the floor, and it's just a jumble, it just looked like a jumble of wood to me.”

Just two miles from downtown Mayfield, the hospital escaped a direct hit. The original path had the hospital in the tornado’s path, but a slight shift sent the tornado through downtown instead.

“It was before 9:45 p.m. before the first eight victims showed up, and they were all soaking wet and muddy,” says Anderson.

He says the 107-bed hospital was left with only emergency power, but that didn’t stop the team at the hospital, as the staff  sprung into action in the most miraculous way.

“Probably the thing I’ll never forget about that night is we didn't make a single phone call to staff to have them come to the hospital that night,” says Anderson. “They just came. I would say almost every one of my radiology staff, probably 25 people, they knew they needed to come.”

A team trained to handle crisis did just that. Before the sun even rose, a community in shock, unleashed a rapid response, and one neither O’Nan and Anderson will forget.

“As soon as the wind stopped blowing, that immediately started happening,” says O’Nan.

“There was no tension in the air among our staff. There was a peace and a calm and just a resolve to get through everything that we needed to get through,” Anderson remembers. “And I’ve never been more proud; I've never been more humbled by their commitment to this community, and the way they fulfilled their role that night in the way that they did.”

Even when then desperate calls came in for more help, the community didn’t quit. And while many unexpected calls came that night, one call was a conversation that took Anderson by surprise. It was from the president of Lifepoint Health, which owns and operates the hospital in Mayfield. With that call, Anderson quickly learned Mayfield wasn’t in this fight alone. 

“He said, ‘Listen, I just have a few things I need to tell you. First of all, there is a generator truck coming to the hospital to help restore power,’ and I had heard of this generator truck that we have, but I didn't really have an idea what the full capability of it was. And he said, ‘I’m sending 8,000 gallons of FDA-approved fresh water that’s also rolling towards your hospital and should be there by tonight. It’s fresh and clean, and it’s just as good as you'd ever get out of the tap anywhere.’”

From water to a generator truck, the help sent from Lifepoint Medical included vital  lifelines for a community in ruins.

“By Tuesday, we even had our clinics that  had no power or water, going again,” says Anderson

This rural hospital cared for 111 patients the hours after the tornado struck Mayfield. Triage also set up in a couple of places across town. The emergency response was swift and dire as the tornado claimed 24 lives in Mayfield, Graves county on December 10, 2021.

“The morning of the 10th we are going to do a walk for remembrance, and we have special t-shirts that we put together for our staff who want to do that. I imagine it’s going to pretty heavy that day,” says Anderson.

As Mayfield remembers those lives that were lost, the response that flooded in from across the nation has been fuel for this rural town the past year.

“Like what started that night and continues to happen, here came help,” says O’Nan. “Our county school system was there immediately with a bus and the superintendent, just people filling in. It just proves what we've always known about people here in this community, and now what the entire nation and world knows, it proves that everybody’s your neighbor. It doesn’t matter if we don’t agree, we just want to help.”

While so much has been done in the year since the tornado hit, Mayfield has a long road of recovery still ahead. To help with the long-term recovery efforts, you can donate here. 

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