Kentucky Governor Details Tornado Damage and Deaths: Live Updates

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Deadly Tornadoes Slam Six States

A massive search-and-rescue operation is underway after several tornadoes ripped through Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Tennessee.

“This has been the most devastating tornado event in our state’s history. And for those that have seen it, what it’s done here in Grace County and elsewhere, it is indescribable.” “Everywhere along the line of this tornado that touched down and stayed down for 227 miles over 200 in Kentucky has been severely and significantly impacted.” “I have talked to the secretary of Homeland Security, while I have been here, he has pledged his full support and we are hearing that from every part of the federal administration and from our U.S. senators and from our congressmen.

After grimly fluctuating death tolls since Friday’s devastating swarm of tornadoes, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky said on Monday that there were 64 confirmed deaths in the state, though he expected that number to rise as crews continued to search through the ruins.

“It may be a week or even more before we have a final count,” the governor said in a news conference, adding that as many as 105 people in Kentucky were still unaccounted for.

Mr. Beshear said that of the confirmed deaths, 18 victims were still unidentified. The ages of the victims, he said, his voice frequently breaking with emotion, ranged from five months to 86 years. Six of the victims were under 18.

The most pointed questions over the number of deaths have been focused on a candle factory in Mayfield, Ky., which was completely crushed in the storm. It has been estimated that 110 people were at work at the factory on Friday night when the tornado hit. For days, it was unclear how many had made it out.

But on Sunday night, a glimmer of hope emerged, with executives at the company that operated the factory suggesting that the number of missing employees was much lower than initially thought.

Troy Propes, the chief executive of Mayfield Consumer Products, said in an interview late Sunday that eight employees were dead and six were still missing — far fewer than initially though.

On Monday, the governor said that officials were trying to confirm what executives had told them: that 94 of the 110 people at work that night are alive and have been accounted for.

“We are actively working to confirm that information,” he said. “We pray that it is true.”

Even with early indications that Mayfield’s death toll could be smaller than initially feared, Mr. Beshear braced the public on Sunday for more victims to be announced in the days ahead. At least four counties in Kentucky have deaths “in double digits,” Mr. Beshear said.

The death toll included a dozen people in Warren County, several of them children. In Muhlenberg County, there were 11 victims, all in the tiny town of Bremen.

Michael Dossett, director of the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management, said of the recovery effort: “This will go on for years.”

In Illinois, at least six people were killed when a tornado struck an Amazon warehouse in the city of Edwardsville. Officials there said on Sunday that there were no more reports of people missing inside the facility, but search efforts for additional victims continued.

The tornadoes’ toll also included four people who died in Tennessee. In Arkansas, at least one person, a 94-year-old man, was killed in a nursing home in Monette, and another person died at a Dollar General store in nearby Leachville. Deaths were also reported in Missouri.

Governor Beshear praised federal officials for what he said has been a quick and thorough response. A federal state of emergency had been declared, the governor said, adding that it was “rare” for it to have been put into place so “incredibly quickly.”

The heads of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency joined Mr. Beshear on Sunday. “I want to thank all of them,” he said at the news conference. Mr. Beshear said President Biden had “called me three times yesterday alone.”

The largest of the tornadoes that ripped through six states will, according to Mr. Beshear, “ultimately be the longest tornado in certainly U.S. history, from the point where it touched down to when it finally picked back up.”

Of the tornado’s more than 220 miles of destruction, he said, “200 of them are in my state, with our people who have suffered from it.”

At least three tornadoes were believed to have hit Kentucky on Friday night, the governor said, before adding that, “I think we now believe many, many more.”

The tornadoes tore through parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, said Bill Bunting, the operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center, part of the National Weather Service.