West Liberty rebuilt after 2012 tornado. Now it offers advice, support for Western Ky.

West Liberty will never be whole again.

On March 2, 2012, a tornado came roaring through the hospital, down the hill, over the river, through downtown and continued down Kentucky Route 7.

Years after, the county seat of Morgan has come back, but not completely. Prior to the tornado, Main Street had building after building filled with boutiques, restaurants and a jewelry store. Now there are vacant lots between buildings.

The damage from that tornado looked similar to how many Western Kentucky communities look now after a string of tornadoes roared through last weekend, leaving destruction and death in their wake.

“Upon entrance on Main Street — pretty much the same sentiments as Mayfield — it looked like a bomb had hit West Liberty,” West Liberty Mayor Mark Walter said. “Main Street was in total disarray.” City Hall took a direct hit.

Linda Oakley, the owner of All Occasion Flowers, recalls seeing tire tracks on the brick above the door of the police station, which neighbors City Hall. The shop was also destroyed in the tornado.

Robert Yearly, of Birddog’s Shirts-N-More, said when he came to town after the tornado touched down, sirens were going off and everyone was in a daze, like zombies.

D. Joleen Frederick, an attorney, said West Liberty looked apocalyptic. She had been at a meeting near the river when the tornado came through.

The steeple of United Method Church, at the intersection of Routes 460 and 7, was in the street. The church was two years shy of its 100th anniversary.

The shingle sign outside Belinda Jordan’s Season’s Florist & Gift Shop was found 167 miles away in a retired florist’s yard in West Virginia. Everything Jordan and her family had worked hard for was now gone.

As destructive as the tornado with 140 mph winds was, nobody died in West Liberty, a town of about 3,500 people. There were six killed in Morgan County.

Help was immediate and stayed for months

Like Western Kentucky, help came pouring in. Within a few hours after the tornado, about 50 emergency service departments were in West Liberty, said Walter, who was a city firefighter.

Yearly’s cousin drove overnight from Lexington bringing generators.

That Saturday, it snowed in West Liberty, making cleanup harder, but the community and volunteers continued to salvage what they could.

Command and food centers were set up. God’s Pit Crew built a temporary elementary school.

Oakley said after the tornado, people came in individually or with volunteer groups, asking the community what they could do to help, prepare food or bring clothes.

Frederick lost everything after the tornado. Her church was destroyed. The court house, where she served as county attorney, was in ruins. Her Main Street law office was pummeled, and years of records were gone, except for the county and property records. The roof of her house had been blown into the street and all of her vehicles were damaged. She was overwhelmed with cleaning up what was left of her home, until a group of Mennonites from Shenandoah Valley drove up. One of the men put his arm around her and that caring gesture still sticks with her, she said.

Newspaper publisher Earl Kinner lost his home and business as well. Kinner was at home watching the news coverage about a tornado north of West Liberty. The newscaster announced “this undoubtedly will be the most destructive tornadic action in Kentucky.” It scared him enough to grab a flashlight and go to his basement. Kinner and his wife had picked out a safe spot in their home years prior, but at the last minute, Kinner picked a different corner in his basement. The lights went out and he heard a loud thump — it was his house collapsing. Kinner was trapped under a board holding down his ankles and his home was threatening to fall in more as it settle. Kinner could see the sky. After three hours, he was rescued.

Kinner was brought to a shelter at a school in Sandy Hook to stay overnight. He was amazed at how prepared they were. Volunteers were setting up beds, preparing the kitchen and collecting donated clothes. Nurses were also there to help. The next day a lady gave him $100 when he returned to his home to clean up. He didn’t think he needed the money, but he soon realized he didn’t have his checkbook or access to a bank.

The Licking Valley Courier didn’t miss an edition. Fortunately, the subscriber list in the business office did not get swept up in the tornado. Kinner, editor Miranda Cantrell, advertising manager Ricky Adkins and reporters worked out of Mt. Sterling’s Advocate’s office and remotely to continue coverage. In April, a trailer was donated to use as an office.

Help continued for more than a year after that March night, Walter, who was serving as a council member at the time, said. Other municipalities pitched in to help West Liberty. Homes and businesses were rebuilt.

“We saw so many people come to us and want to help,” Walter said.

West Liberty tornado survivors have PTSD

The emotional toll of the EF3 tornado remains with West Liberty residents.

Bad weather robs Frederick of sleep. Jordan has flashbacks when she drives by the hospital that was damaged by the tornado, and this week she’s had more. Walter gets choked up seeing the damage of Western Kentucky. He says he has a form of PTSD from the West Liberty tornado.

They are feeling the pain of the Western Kentucky communities: Mayfield, Bowling Green, Dawson Springs, Bremen and others.

“For us, that have lived through it, it’s an emotional time. It really is. Nine years,” Walter said. “When you see pictures that look so much like downtown West Liberty and there were two or three pictures of Mayfield of the courthouse and some cars that looked just like some of the cars on Main Street, it just brings it right back to reality of what we went through.”

He said when he sees cloud formations, his heart goes into fast gear, even without hearing a storm warning.

West Liberty has come to terms that life will never be the same as before that March 2, 2012 day.

“It will never be normal,” Frederick said. “It’s a new normal. Your new normal is comfortable and happy, because you made it through.”

The tornado showed how resilient and kind humanity can be, she said.

Oakley said the first time a business reopens and a house is rebuilt it pushes the community to normalcy.

“It’s going to be different, it is going to be new, and there’s going to be things that will be better, there are going to be things that you miss, but life will go on,” she said.

Oakley said those who lost loved ones in Western Kentucky will get back up, but they will always have a hole missing.

The West Liberty tornado wasn’t the first tornado Oakley and her husband Dale lived through, an F5 tornado hit Xenia, Ohio in 1974, killing more than 30 people and injuring more than 1,000 others. Twice, Oakley has seen the resiliency and kindness of humanity personally.

The choice to rebuild West Liberty

For some, there was no hesitation to build back West Liberty. In two weeks Oakley’s boss Cheryl McKenzie was working out of her garage. When McKenzie died in 2013, Oakley continued the legacy of All Occasion Flowers in a new location.

Yearly contemplated leaving the screen printing business to go back to work, but he wanted to stay in West Liberty. He decided to go all in. He continued printing in his basement as he fixed up his heavily damaged shop on Gardener Street. He printed his first shirt on Dec. 21, 2012, commemorating “the end of the world.”

Frederick had a brief moment questioning whether to start over. Her three kids were in college and she thought about her age.

“You can’t quit, because there’s a love of the community and the land you grew up,” she said.

Walter said the first business to reopen brought hope to West Liberty.

Jordan decided not to rebuild. Losing her florist shop was heartbreaking. Jordan’s mother bought the business to give to her and her sister. Her father renovated the building. Season’s Florist was open for 23 years before the tornado took it out. Jordan said she was thankful her dad had passed away about eight months before the tornado so he didn’t have to see the building he worked so hard on gone. She considered the flower shop her home.

“It’s hard for mom and pop businesses to survive in small towns anymore,” Jordan said. “And for here, the tornado was an outlet for a lot of those mom and pop businesses that were struggling to get out. It was closure for them to get out.”

Jordan also had some health problems at the time.

She said reopening a business can give tornado victims something to occupy their time and mind and is something to put their heart and soul into. It gives business owners an opportunity to start with a clean slate and rebuild in a way that works best for the business.

Jordan said she had trouble navigating insurance as well. Proving that she lost items, like ones that were hanging on the wall, was difficult. She also wanted to rebuild a two-story building, instead of three, but there were mandates.

Frederick said she looked to local officials and local insurance agents to help. Yearly previously worked at insurance agency Nationwide relied on his insurance to get back open.

Walter said businesses needed to follow code and be ADA compliant now. Some businesses were in a flood plain, so couldn’t rebuild at the same location.

The residents of West Liberty say rebuilding takes a lot of patience, as insurance and government assistance comes in. Frederick said it took her months to find carpenters and construction workers to rebuild.

“It takes a long time to wonder what it will look like, and right now for Western Kentucky, their vision is how do we get through day-by-day and that’s what you do, you live day by day,” Walter said.

Back to normal takes time

West Liberty’s message for Western Kentucky is despite being hundreds of miles apart they are with the tornado victims. The community will come back and it will be stronger than before.

“You’ll see what your community is made of because they are really, really strong,” Walter said.

Normalcy will take time, Cantrell said.

“Right now, they probably feel like things will never going to be normal again,” Cantrell said. “And we felt that way too for a long time. But eventually everything gets cleaned up. Things are not the same, and they’re not going to be, but eventually you get back to some sort of routine and you have some sort of normalcy again.”

Kinner said it has taken West Liberty nine years to get back to halfway normal. He said West Liberty is not the same, and he hopes in Western Kentucky it comes back thriving.

Frederick recommended Western Kentuckians to cherish the help and not to hesitate to tap into resources.

Oakley has thought about the people of Western Kentucky every day. She wants the victims not to lose hope.

“The thing is to not ever give up, because things can change overnight,” she said. “They really can. When it looks dark and hopeless, somebody will come and say, ‘here is a place to live, here’s some clothes to wear, here’s a job. It’s going to be alright. Here’s hope.”

Yearly said it’s going to be a long process to come back. He recommends the communities to figure out the best practice to distribute funds donated, maybe by appointing a local board. Like Western Kentucky, donations came pouring in, but he doesn’t know what happened to a lot of it. He only received a computer.

Jordan advised not to give up and take one day at a time. West Liberty is ready to help Western Kentucky.

“If there’s anything that I could do, reach out to West Liberty,” Jordan said. “All they go to do is to reach out to us. We’ll do anything. We know. We’ve been there and done that. People reached out to us and and it’s time that we can back. People gave to us and we can give to them.”

This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 1:18 PM.