One person is dead and 13 injured after an EF-2 tornado roared through Washington County Friday morning. According to the National Weather Service in Louisville, the twister had maximum winds of at least 115 miles per hour. Washington Judge-Executive Timothy Graves said they didn’t get much notice.
“At 7:11am, the first 911 call came in dispatch about damage on Long Run (Road). And roughly around seven, the alert systems went out, you know, severe thunderstorm, tornado warning. So the alerts went out just minutes before it was time to take cover.”
The lead forecaster for the National Weather Service’s Louisville office said they were fully staffed and had brought in personnel overnight to prepare for the storms. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office said the injured were taken to area hospitals. A search and rescue operation found an injured 3-year-old child who was transported to UK Chandler Hospital. Graves said the area the tornado touched down in is rural and very lightly populated.
“That's why there's no siren out there. And we had two homes that were just completely destroyed, I mean, blown away. And there's other buildings and houses out there that have damage, but not the severity of the two that were hit, I guess, dead center, if you will.”
Graves said first responders from several area counties came to help, with additional support from other parts of Kentucky. The tornado struck a little more than two weeks after another killed 19 people in Laurel and Pulaski counties.
