'It happened so quick': Milton leaders describe aftermath of EF-2 tornado as cleanup begins

MILTON ― The fog still hung over the town nestled on the banks of the Ohio River, a common sight this time of year.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear still stood among the debris in a parking lot in downtown Milton Saturday morning, shaking hands with emergency management leaders, judges and first responders from three counties as he checked in on their crews.

But one street over and out-of-sight, excavating equipment began picking up the damage.

Beshear declared a state of emergency for Trimble County, as well as Gallatin and Carroll counties, following the tornado that hit the area around 3 p.m. on Thursday. Early estimates say 85 structures were destroyed in Trimble County alone, but only two people were treated for minor injuries.

"We can repair buildings," Beshear said. "We cannot replace people."

Several among the group nodded.

"Had this been a three-hour later event, we would have had more people in homes and it probably would have been a lot different situation," Trimble County Judge Executive John Ogburn told The Courier Journal. "We were blessed that it hit when it hit."

Milton Mayor Denny Jackson called his town "tough old birds."

"They just pull themselves up by the bootstraps and keep going," he said. "They don't let anything get them down."

A survey from the National Weather Service in Louisville found a single 17.2-mile long EF-2 tornado with peak winds of 115 mph was responsible for the damage in Hanover, Indiana, and Milton.

"The tornado was on the ground for 22 minutes as it touched down one mile north of Hanover, Indiana, and lifted in Switzerland County, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Carrollton, Kentucky," the report said. "This tornado crossed the Ohio River twice, including paralleling the river for a couple miles as the southern edge of the funnel damaged Milton, Kentucky. The max path width was 500 yards wide at its max."

The service originally believed an EF-1 tornado had touched down in the area, but spent most of Friday assessing the damage before a final determination was made in the evening.

This isn't the first time a tornado has hit the small town of less than 700 residents. In April 1974, Milton was also affected by the second-largest tornado super outbreak in U.S. history thanks to a devastating tornado that destroyed roughly 90% of nearby Hanover, Indiana, leaving 11 people dead and hundreds wounded.

In 2012, a tornado that went through Henryville also hit Milton. An EF-0 tornado with path nearly identical to Thursday's EF-2 also struck the town in 2018.

"Houses that got hit with the EF-0 didn't get hit this time," Trimble County Emergency Management Director Andrew Stark said. "And houses that didn't get hit in the EF-0 got hit this time."

Stark said Thursday's tornado came quick.

"We had just gotten the alert for the severe thunderstorm and probably 15 minutes later, we got the tornado warning," he said. "It happened so quick we didn't know we were involved until we started having reports."

The Bedford Fire Department tried to respond via Highway 421, the main road leading into downtown, but the road was covered with tree debris. It took them about 20 minutes to drive less than a mile of road.

"We cut in as we were coming," said Will McCoy, Bedford's fire chief. "We couldn't drive the road."

Stark, who's been in his position since 2015, activated the county's emergency plan and reached out to departments in surrounding counties for help. Fire departments from Henry, Oldham and Carroll counties, as well as a drone team, came to lend support on Thursday. Emergency management teams from a dozen counties statewide joined the damage assessment efforts Friday.

More: They survived the tornado that leveled the Mayfield candle factory. That was just the beginning

'The wind was so strong, glass was stuck in the wall.'

When Shelby Jones looked at the hole in her bathroom ceiling, insulation rained down on her.

The windows in her kitchen, living room and sons' bedrooms were gone.

"The wind was so strong, glass was stuck in the wall," she said.

When she received the warning, like Stark, she thought it didn't hit Milton.

"I wasn't even thinking I was going to come home to anything, but I pulled up and I started seeing my neighbors' houses," she said. "Our house ended up being worse than all of them."

She's thankful her four boys were at school or daycare and she was substitute teaching in Carroll County when disaster struck. She's pregnant with the family's fifth.

"It's finally a girl," 4-year-old Miles exclaimed, reaching for his mom's belly.

His brothers, 9-year-old Ruben and 7-year-old Atlas, were running the steps with him of the conference center at General Butler State Resort Park, which opened its doors to more than 100 people, including at least 37 children and eight dogs, who were without power or whose home was destroyed during the storm.

On Saturday, as Gov. Beshear met with families in the lodge, some found out their power had returned and began to check out.

"It's heartwarming that we were able to do this and help these people have some comfort with the damage that's been done to their homes," said Christy Combs, a regional administrator with Kentucky State Parks.

For Jones and her children, though, their home is unlivable. She's not sure what she's going to do.

"My landlord is saying the damage is pretty bad," she said, "We might not be able to live there during repairs."

Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter, with a focus on the health and safety. She can be reached at skuzydym@courier-journal.com. Follow her at @stephkuzy.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Tornadoes in KY: Beshear tours damage after EF-2 tornado in Milton