Members of Indiana Task Force 1 work to remove heavy debris from the remains of a candle factory at Mayfield Consumer Products in Mayfield, Kentucky earlier this week.
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Debris from destroyed buildings and shredded trees cover the ground in Mayfield.
Twisted sheet metal, downed power lines and wrecked vehicles line the streets.
Windows were blown out and roofs were torn off buildings that are still standing.
Mayfield, a city of 10,000 about 300 miles south of Johnson County, was among the hardest hit when weekend twisters slammed five states — Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee — Friday night into Saturday. At least 88 people — including 74 in Kentucky — were killed in the tornadoes, the Associated Press reported.
A pair of Johnson County firefighters are among a team of first responders sent to Western Kentucky to assist in search and rescue efforts. Bargersville Community Fire Department Battalion Chief Sean Campbell and Greenwood firefighter Rob Stecher were among the 45 personnel from Indiana Task Force No. 1 sent first to Mayfield, then to Dawson Springs, Ky. The task force arrived in Mayfield late on Saturday, and began operations on Sunday at a candle factory at Mayfield Consumer Products.
The damage in the city is unbelievable to see, said Campbell, who has been on the task force for seven years. Mayfield marks his fifth deployment.
“It’s unprecedented. I’ve never seen destruction like this from a tornado; it’s pretty catastrophic,” he said.
Campbell is the search team manager for the task force’s search operations at the candle factory. The task force had been removing debris from the site and looking for possible victims. They finished search and rescue there on Tuesday, after they made sure everyone was accounted for.
The destruction at the candle factory reminded Campbell of the destruction at the Champlain Towers South building collapse, which killed 94 people earlier this year outside Miami, Fla., which he was also deployed on.
“Having those two events back-to-back has been difficult to deal with,” he said. “But this is what the job entails, and we will do it.”
Initially, authorities feared a much higher death toll at the factory because dozens of employees were working late to make candles for holiday orders. But Louisville Emergency Management Director E.J. Meiman said late Monday that authorities now “have a high level of confidence that nobody is left in this building,” according to the AP.
Kentucky’s workplace safety agency is looking into the deaths of eight people who were killed at the candle factory as storms raked the area starting Friday night, the AP reported.
Such reviews are done whenever workers are killed on the job, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said.
Now, the task force has moved northeast to Dawson Springs — another Kentucky city that was hit hard. In Dawson Springs, a city of nearly 2,500, homes were reduced to rubble and trees toppled, littering the landscape for a span of at least a mile, the AP reported.
There, the task force will conduct wide area searches and mark structures to help ensure everyone is accounted for, the task force said in a news release.
While it is difficult to be down there, Campbell found a silver lining. The effort he has seen from fire departments, emergency operation centers, the National Guard and teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is inspiring, he said.
“It’s been an honor to be a part of that. We completely understand that this is a large loss of life, especially during the holidays,” he said.
Four tornadoes have been confirmed in Kentucky, including one with an extraordinarily long path of about 200 miles, authorities said.
In addition to the deaths in Kentucky, the twisters also killed at least six people in Illinois, where an Amazon distribution center in Edwardsville was heavily damaged; four in Tennessee; two in Arkansas, where a nursing home was destroyed and the governor said workers shielded residents with their own bodies; and two in Missouri, the AP reported.
