For decades, Eastern Kentucky has experienced natural disasters. One of those events in 2012 included an EF3 tornado that tore through West Liberty, causing death and destruction.
Kopana Terry, the Oral History Archivist at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky, said it was her hometown that was devastated.
“Even though I wasn’t in the storm, like so many other West Liberty natives, we were all traumatized by it,” said Terry.
Terry’s been documenting the horrific event by conducting oral history interviews with 36 participants.
“This is a series of oral history interviews that I conducted with people from Morgan County who either still live there or lived there at least 18 years of their life. And we concentrated on their reaction to the storm and the loss of the town," said Terry.
This work is part of her historic preservation master’s thesis and is titled, Place, Identity and Natural Disasters.
“I looked at this through the lens of architecture and how we are connected to the buildings that we inhabit and why it comes to mean so much to us, and I was trying to understand why it has such a devastating effect on me and so many other people when a town is just wiped off the map the way that West Liberty was,” said Terry.
The archivist says the researchers in the historic preservation and architecture field are just starting to explore why people become attached to certain buildings. Terry recalls what she has learned.
”Human beings are accustomed to sides and having something at our back. This is a very primal instinct that we have. Where during evolution, we needed something at our back for protection. And that unconscious part of our brain still retains that. Now, when you put that in context, of city or town like West Liberty, that’s now missing; you don’t have that safety anymore. We don’t even have trees where we used to have trees. Trees can make great security; you know, you put your back up against a tree, and you feel like you have something protecting your back. We don’t even have those in West Liberty now. This storm took those out. It took the buildings out. It was a strange sensation right after the storm when everything was laying in rubble. You could walk down the street, and there was still something recognizable about the rubble,” explained Terry.
While her goal was to focus on how and why people are connected to buildings they inhabit, Terry says she also spoke with people about their experiences of the storm. Terry recorded Tim Conley, who was the county judge-executive at the time of the storm. He was in City Hall on Main Street when the tornado hit. He recalls a woman who was trapped outside City Hall during the tornado.
“It will never go away in my head. And I’m looking at her, and I see this tornado. We’re wrapped in this tornado. I’m seeing this thing spin. I’m seeing the dirt, the cars, the tree trunks. And in the very center where she’s standing, it’s as clear as a bell. I can see the yellow line on the road. And we’re standing in this tornado. And she’s on the outside of this door, and me and Mike’s on the inside. And I pushed on that door, and she pulled, and it finally broke, just enough suction. And when it broke, the building sort of exploded. And we pulled her in,” explained Conley.
The Oral History Interviews vary in length. Terry said some are an hour and a half, some are three hours. She also recorded Kent Nickell, who is a native of West Liberty. He speaks briefly about Main Street and the excitement it once held.
“When I got old enough to walk up into town, it was exciting for me, to walk up into town. Of course, the first thing I saw was the courthouse. And I know people can’t believe this, but to this day, when I walked up into town, I still got the same feeling. You know, you come up the little ally there where Brown’s Hardware used to be, and you were on Main Street now, and you just think, alright, I’m on Main Street now. Who knows who I’m going to see? Who knows what’s going to happen? You know. And it’s just that little block where all the stores and the buildings are across from the courthouse, and my dad always used to talk about going uptown. It was so exciting for him, even when he was in high school and in college. Walking up there was always exciting for me,” explained Nickell.
Terry credits her boss, Doug Boyd, with inspiring her to conduct these oral histories. She says she and Boyd, the Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, have been talking about documenting the West Liberty tornado since it happened. But she said timing is important.
"You need to be careful not to talk to people after a disaster too early. They’re still traumatized. They haven’t had time to process everything that’s happened to them. By the same token, you don’t want to wait too long. And I almost did,” said Terry.
Doug Boyd said that as time started to unfold, he encouraged Terry to return back to her hometown and document this natural disaster with oral histories.
“ I think that the opportunity of having somebody of her caliber, with her inside knowledge, and with her connections to the community. It was really the right time, she’s the right person, and it was the right place for those interviews to happen, I think in that moment. I’m really so happy that she did those interviews. When you talk about disaster projects, they’re are really hard. They’re emotionally hard. They’re not just hard on the interviewer. It’s hard on the interviewees. It triggers all kinds of memories that can be very painful. They have to be very thoughtfully done, and she really again was the perfect person to do those particular interviews,” said Boyd.
Appalachia has a bullseye on its back, said Terry, when it comes to natural disasters. She plans to continue talking with survivors of the 2012 West Liberty tornado.
“And I want to branch out and talk to other people outside of West Liberty who have either endured another tornado like over in Laurel County where they had the EF4 last year or the devastating floods that came down Troublesome in 2022,” said Terry.
Kopana Terry said the oral history interviews are all available through the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.
