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High Winds Destroy Homes in Several Counties including Madison

A strong line of storms blew through Central and Southeastern Kentucky, Wednesday, knocking down power lines and trees and causing damage to several homes and businesses.

The wind blows hard through Donna Whittaker’s hair while she’s picking up the pieces to her home. The mobile home in Madison County where she and her husband lived was completely destroyed as high winds whipped through her neighborhood. Whittaker says it was pure chaos. “I was in the living room and all I could do was get under the coffee table because everything was falling.”

Whittaker’s daughter and grandson were sleeping in the back bedroom when the storm hit. Barby Whittaker says the hard rain woke her up, she looked out the window and saw what she describes as blue lightning. “ One minute I’m looking at the roof, the next minute I’m looking at the sky.” She thought the trailer was going to cave in on her and her son.

There was significant weather damage isolated in the southern part of Richmond ,the center of Madison County. Corey Lewis with  Richmond’s fire department says at least 4 or 5 trailers have major structural damage with roofs blown off. “We had a factory that lost a significant amount of roof, a factory had a wall collapse and the 30- 35 homes here’’ .

Lewis says Emergency Management and the National Weather Service will determine if straight- line winds or a tornado was to blame.

Emergency officials reported several damaged homes in other counties including Estill, Lee and Scott .

No serious injuries were reported according to Corey Lewis.

Cheri is a broadcast producer, anchor, reporter, announcer and talk show host with over 25 years of experience. For three years, she was the local host of Morning Edition on WMUB-FM at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Cheri produced and hosted local talk shows and news stories for the station for nine years. Prior to that, she produced and co-hosted a local talk show on WVXU, Cincinnati for nearly 15 years. Cheri has won numerous awards from the Public Radio News Directors Association, the Ohio and Kentucky Associated Press, and both the Cincinnati and Ohio chapters of the Society for Professional Journalists.
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