Rebuilding

A few weeks back some pretty bad storms came through our area.  Eastern Kentucky received the worst of it, tornadoes touched down and the area was declared a state of emergency.   Last week we were traveling through on our way to Lexington to visit family during spring break.  This is a photo of where we usually stop in Salyersville for lunch and to gas up.  Out of 10 or 12 restaurants on this strip, the only place left open to stop was a Dairy Queen across the street.  Every other place was under repair or in a few cases, being completely torn down.

A little further down the road all the trees on entire sections of the hillside had been flattened.  Then on the other side of the road, everything would look OK.  I would have liked to have taken a few more photos, but the a lot of the damage was on parts of the road where I couldn't safely pull off completely.   We saw an errant pair of coveralls hanging from a branch high in a tree, like they had been laid across it to dry.  Except for the fact that the branch was 20 feet from the ground.   There was also a huge tree that had been uprooted completely and set back down perfectly upright against an embankment just off the road shoulder.

You hear stories of the crazy things tornadoes do and how bad the damage is, but I don't think you can fully grasp it until you've seen the aftermath in person.  The people in this area are in my thoughts as they repair, recover,and try to get their homes, businesses, and lives back in order.