Jill Biden visits Bowling Green to survey Kentucky tornado damage

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — First lady Jill Biden saw firsthand Friday the devastation left by tornadoes in this south central Kentucky city, one of many ravaged by deadly twisters last month.

Recovery, she said afterward in a public address alongside other local and national officials at Bowling Green's FEMA center, won't be easy. But after a difficult month, she said, there's hope on the horizon.

"It will take time to make this beautiful place whole again," she said. "But what we've all seen today is there is faith here, too, and there is so much strength, and there is so much hope, if only we know where to look for it – in the first responders and the volunteers, in members of this community and Americans across this country sending donations and praying for the recovery for the people of Kentucky. There is hope, and there is help."

Biden visited the region Friday to survey recovery efforts. She landed in Nashville about 11:15 a.m., where she was greeted by Nashville Mayor John Cooper and other officials from Tennessee, before heading north to visit the Bluegrass State.

Biden and Deputy FEMA Administrator Erik Hooks arrived in Bowling Green about 12:40 p.m., along with Gov. Andy Beshear and Kentucky first lady Britainy Beshear. Several other local officials were in attendance as well, including U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie, state Rep. Patti Minter, Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon and Bowling Green Mayor Todd Alcott, with many addressing the crowd later that afternoon.

The group met on Spring Creek Avenue, which was ravaged in the storms. Many of the homes left standing in the neighborhood still have not been repaired, with shingles and shards of glass strewn among the yards.

Samantha McCormick lives in the neighborhood and lost her business, a dance studio, to the tornado. Still, she acknowledges, it could've been worse – "I tell my husband, 'They could've been planning our funerals.'"

Biden's visit on Friday, she said, "shows that they care."

"You can look at it on TV all you want, and you're going to go, 'Oh, that's sad.' But then when you come here and you see it, it's different," McCormick said. "... To see this makes me feel like I have national love, that she's going to go back to her husband or her people and talk about what she's seen with her own eyes."

Biden and the other officials then traveled to Greenwood Mall, where FEMA has been working in Bowling Green. She told those in the crowd that Beshear and FEMA officials have been "incredible" in their response to the tornadoes.

"This is who we are as Americans," she said. "We come together and we help each other."

Guthrie, addressing the crowd that afternoon at the FEMA center, has seen the damage firsthand. The home across the street from where he lives was recently razed due to the tornadoes, he said, a clear sign of "what people are going through."

"We're going to rebuild," the congressman said. "We're going to be better for it."

Biden and Hooks had previously been scheduled to visit Bowling Green on Jan. 6, but that trip was postponed ahead of a snowstorm that led to a state of emergency in Kentucky.

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The visit aimed to "highlight the partnership between federal and local agencies that ensures Kentuckians are receiving the aid and relief they need."

At least 77 people were killed by the multiple tornadoes that struck Kentucky the weekend of Dec. 10 — the worst death toll in state history related to a tornado event.

Most of the destruction came from one tornado that traveled more than 220 miles from Arkansas through Kentucky, including the city of Mayfield.

In Bowling Green, the tornado outbreak killed 17 people — the second-largest concentration of deaths from the storms in one county.

One family in town, the Browns, lost seven members; they lived on a street where five people in a separate family, the Besics, also died.

Bowling Green was hit by another tornado New Year's Day, though far less powerful.

President Joe Biden visited Kentucky to survey the damage on Dec. 15, pledging that the federal government would cover all costs during 30 days of recovery in the region.

USA TODAY Network reporters Adam Friedman and Lucas Aulbach contributed.

Reach Tessa Duvall at tduvall@courier-journal.com and 502-582-4059. Twitter: @TessaDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Jill Biden visits Kentucky in aftermath of deadly December tornadoes