Thousands still without power in Kentucky following devastating tornado outbreak

Lucas Aulbach, Louisville Courier Journal
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UPDATE: About 7,400 LG&E customers were still without power as of Tuesday morning. Only about 10 customers had reported outages in Jefferson County, according to LG&E.

Statewide, over 23,600 outages were reported Tuesday morning in Kentucky, including about 5,200 outages in Graves County, where the city of Mayfield was destroyed, the PowerOutage.us site said.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The series of tornadoes that ripped through Western Kentucky early Saturday morning left a trail of damage and cut power to tens of thousands in the commonwealth.

Speaking at a press conference at 5 a.m., Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said 56,854 people in the state were without power as of 4:45 a.m. The death toll from the storm, he said, would likely pass 70 and climb 100 casualties or more.

"Some areas have been hit in ways that are hard to put into words," he said.

Live updates: Kentucky continues to dig out from tornadoes as death toll grows

'Divine intervention': 70+ elderly residents survive Mayfield nursing home annihilation

Storms hit Louisville, but the state's largest city appeared to have been spared from the worst of the damage. Still, more than 22,000 Louisville Gas & Electric customers appeared to be without power just before 7 a.m., according to an outage map from LG&E.

Early power outages from the tornado damage overnight Dec. 10, 2021.
Early power outages from the tornado damage overnight Dec. 10, 2021.

Outage maps in other hard-hit areas, including Mayfield and Bowling Green, weren't able to be accessed at about 6:30 a.m.

A map shown by Beshear during his 5 a.m. press conference indicated power outages were at their worst in Western Kentucky — specifically in Hopkins, Muhlenberg and Ohio counties, though data from some far-west counties was unavailable.

That area was "hit very, very hard," Beshear said, and outages stretched east into the Louisville and Lexington areas.

In Louisville, according to a social media post from LG&E, the storms "caused a number of downed power lines we're addressing."

The utility company urged affected users to report downed wires by calling 502-589-1444 or 800-331-7370.

More: Gov. Andy Beshear says 'dozens' dead in Mayfield, factory hit by tornado

This story has been updated.

Lucas Aulbach can be reached at laulbach@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4649 or on Twitter @LucasAulbach.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Power outages in Kentucky: Tornado causes 56K to be without power