'We are going to come back from this': New homes rise after devastating Kentucky tornadoes

GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. — Robert and Donna Freeman had lived in their newly built home on Kentucky Lake just 890 days when a mile-wide tornado bulldozed through Western Kentucky and twisted the house off its foundation.

The three-bedroom home was supposed to be the retired couple's last move. But they soon found themselves bunking with their son and six grandkids while a contractor worked to build the house for the second time in three years.

In the year since the storm, Robert has undergone back surgery and had a tumor removed from his kidney. He's started seeing a therapist to address the emotional and mental toll the tornado and its aftermath have taken on him. And he's regularly checked on the house he's yet to move back to — a waiting game that's kept the couple from feeling at ease.

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"I guess what gets me more than anything is to drive by or stand on my property and look out and see that devastation," Robert said in May, five months after the tornado. "It does have the tendency to bring back vivid memories of that night. I think once we get back in a more normal situation with our home, our landscape, things will seem a lot more normal."

The Freemans are far from alone in returning to normal. The couple's home is one of the first in their neighborhood, near Cambridge Shores, to be under roof. And many properties in surrounding counties have yet to be rebuild following the series of tornadoes that whipped through 28 Kentucky counties between Dec. 10 and 11, killing 80 people and injuring more than 600.

In Mayfield, one of the hardest-hit cities, nonprofits and volunteer groups have constructed dozens of new homes. But some — especially those that were rentals — may never come back, said Mayor Kathy O'Nan.

More than 6,000 homes were damaged across all areas hit by tornadoes, including 1,700 that suffered major damage or were destroyed, according to an assessment by the Red Cross. A separate assessment by local emergency management teams found 3,100 homes and businesses were damaged, including about 1,300 that suffered major damage or were destroyed.

State officials estimate the storms did $305 million in damage. And as of December, Kentucky residents and communities have received more than $121 million in assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Small Business Administration.

Seventy-five people continue to live in trailers purchased by the state.

"We've talked to current and past officials in Joplin, Missouri," which was struck by a devastating tornado in 2011, O'Nan said. "They said you're looking at 10 years" to recover.

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"When I look at our town, we are so barren," she continued. "So much is gone. ... But I would be very surprised if when spring comes that there's not a lot of construction going on here, as far as businesses and even more homes."

Surviving the storm

The Freemans had 13 minutes to take cover.

They'd been watching WPSD when anchors warned a tornado — later determined to have 190-mph winds — was heading in their direction.

They grabbed their dog and rushed to the laundry room at the center of their house. After struggling to pull a mattress inside, they propped it against the door and covered their heads in pillows and blankets.

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Donna spoke with their daughter on the phone as the tornado neared.

"I could hear it coming," Robert recalled. "I told her she needed to get off the phone, that it was coming. She hung up, then we held hands and we prayed."

Outside, "you could hear it pulling stuff apart. ... It was like a piece of machinery going whir, whir whir, whir, whir. As it moved away, that noise became less and less, like a car going down the road with a bad muffler or something. ... At the very end, we started feeling debris hitting us, then water."

The Freemans were in their laundry room no more than 10 minutes. But when they opened the door, they saw an entirely different world.

The exterior wall of their main bedroom was gone and, with it, all the furniture. A neighbor's car was pushed up against the house. Ornaments from their Christmas tree were shattered across the lawn, but presents left on a guest bed remained undisturbed.

In the living room, a table and two recliners were pushed together next to a grandfather clock Robert had been fixing earlier in the evening. It rested at 10 p.m. — the time the tornado hit.

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Soon, neighbors began calling out to make sure others were okay. While one hopped in a utility vehicle to try to get out of the subdivision, Robert and Donna took shelter in a car that had suffered little damage, remaining there until 3:30 a.m., when rescuers finally managed to get through the debris.

As they left their battered home, they were thankful to have survived the storm.

But the long road to recovery was just starting.

Starting to rebuild

Robert was getting frustrated.

His application for assistance from FEMA had been denied because the Freemans had home insurance. But their plan didn't cover the thousands of dollars they'd need to remove stumps from downed trees.

He spent seven hours struggling to apply for a second assistance program through the SBA only to get an error message when he went to upload the final document. And when he called FEMA for help, he got hung up on three times.

It had been three months since the tornado, and Robert was already experiencing its long-ranging effects.

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In the ensuing months, he'd appeal the denials until he couldn't anymore. He and his wife would move into a rental to get out of their son's basement. He went back to working part time in July, and in September, he had a two-part surgery intended to relieve pain in his lower back.

Meanwhile, construction on the house moved in starts and stops. It took five weeks to get a plumber and another five for workers to hang drywall. Everyone was overwhelmed with demand, and nothing seemed to happen quickly.

The stress began to strain the Freemans' marriage.

"They always say if you can build a house and still remain married, you've got a pretty strong marriage," Robert said. "But this is No. 2 in less than three years. It's not one of those things we chose to do. ... There's just something mentally. I know neither one of us want to ever go through that again."

In November, the Freemans were given a deadline to move out of their rental by the end of the following month.

With flooring set to be laid and cabinets ready to be installed, the couple felt they could be back in the home by Christmas.

But when Dec. 10 came, they wouldn't be in town.

"I just don't think we could handle it," Robert said of the couple choosing to visit their grandson in Indiana, instead.

Properties around the Freeman's home still haven't been fully cleaned up. And while it was fine in the summer when growth hid the destruction, Robert said, the winter has again laid bare the damage that was done.

"To me, that's probably the most traumatic part of all this, still being here," he said. "When I look at that, I can hear those trees snapping. That's sort of the thing that I would like to see cleaned up and get back to normal, so we don't have constant, daily reminders of what happened."

Moving forward

Several cities have planned events marking the tornadoes' anniversary, and for O'Nan in Mayfield, the date will be bittersweet.

She's in awe of the many strangers who've helped her city piece itself back together. But she's also burdened by what her community has lost.

"It's passed quicker than I thought it would and sometimes it seems like so long ago," she said of the first year. "Always in the back of our minds are the people we lost. Forever in my heart and mind, it will be Dec. 10 was the tornado. But I know in the hearts of the families of those 24 we lost, the tornado was secondary. Their anniversary will always be different."

In the coming months, workers are expected to begin bringing Mayfield's ravished downtown back to life, following the end of a six-month assessment that set design standards for the area.

And across the city, community members already see promise in the homes that are popping up.

Jane Bright, coordinator for Homes and Hope for Kentucky, a nonprofit that formed in the wake of the tornadoes, has spearheaded construction of 28 homes through donations and volunteer labor.

"There's one section of town that we've got six homes," she said. "I can see them when I come over (the) bridge. It's just kind of like, 'Wow, we are going to come back from this.' I really think Mayfield has got a chance to be better than it was before."

In Hopkins County, Judge-Executive Jack Whitfield said many residents are still living in different areas and entire subdivisions remain a shadow of what they were. But developers are working to return apartments and industry to the area.

And though the first year after the storms has been rough, he said, "year two will tell how strong we can come back."

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly combined damage assessments by the Red Cross and local emergency management teams.

Reach reporter Bailey Loosemore at bloosemore@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4646 or on Twitter @bloosemore.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: A year later, Western Kentucky tornado survivors work to rebuild homes