Mayfield Mayor Kathy O’Nan took shelter on the night of Dec. 10, 2021 as she heard the tornado and warnings blare through the region. She admits she foolishly thought the city escaped damage until she received a call from the Mayfield fire chief saying downtown was gone.

Not many people had heard of Mayfield, Kentucky until the deadly tornado ripped through the town, destroying homes, businesses and more along its path.

The December tornado was one of 71 to hit eight states that night. The tornado was a category EF-4 with winds of 195 mph. The tornado touched down first in Arkansas then crossed the Missouri bootheel before continuing into Tennessee. There, it lifted for roughly 10 miles before reforming and continuing 160 miles through Kentucky. This tornado led to extensive damage in Mayfield, Dawson Springs, and Princeton while a separate tornado hit Bowling Green.

The tornado displaced approximately 1,200 people in Mayfield. O’Nan hopes to get rental properties to come to rebuild in Mayfield to provide housing for the population’s renters. Mayfield First United Methodist Church pastor Joey Reed said roughly 4,000 FEMA cases have been filed in Graves County alone.

Those who lost their homes are staying in temporary housing, staying with family and friends, and seeking assistance. Retired city officials and other victims whose homes were destroyed were in the streets helping to clear the roads of debris for emergency vehicles.

“By the next morning, the streets were already pretty much clear and the emergency vehicles could get in and out,” O’Nan said. “There were immediately things I needed to be signing. The first thing I did was to sign an emergency declaration, which you hope you never have to do.”

Driving through town that morning, she saw downtown flattened with her church, the historic First Methodist Church, destroyed. Reed and his wife were sheltering in the basement of the First United Methodist Church in Mayfield when the tornado hit the church.

The catastrophic tornado flattened the historic church of 102 years and other downtown buildings. The church parsonage, which is a church house adjacent to the sanctuary, where Reed and his wife live was untouched.

Reed said other members of the church were unharmed, yet they still are grieving the loss of their building. Reed said he is responding to his own grief by helping others go through the same difficult process.

By Saturday afternoon, O’Nan said volunteers were cooking for the victims and were comforting those who had lost so much.

An emergency operations center was established on Sunday, December 13, 2021, and President Joe Biden declared Mayfield an emergency disaster area. While Gov. Andy Beshear visited the area Saturday morning, he revisited with Biden on Dec. 15. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell visited on Dec.18.

Rebuilding and Construction

Four months after the December tornado, clean-up efforts in Mayfield are still ongoing. While some of the debris has been removed, parts of Mayfield and downtown still deal with large amounts of debris. The debris removal has been handled by Graves County with the debris taken to the county landfill.

As crews work to remove the debris, local, state and national volunteers have poured into Mayfield to help with the rebuilding process. Organizations like ​​Samaritan’s Purse , the Catholic Relief Fund and Homes and Hope are committed to build homes for the next two years. In addition, local groups and nonprofits are building homes on a smaller scale. O’Nan also said youth groups are traveling to Mayfield this summer to help with rebuilding efforts.

“We are resilient people,” O’Nan said.  “But in rebuilding, we can’t do it by ourselves.”

In addition to Mayfield’s housing situation, local businesses and historical buildings were also destroyed. According to the Courier Journal, an estimated 30 to 50 businesses were destroyed.

Brittney Brown, owner of Jonah Brown boutique, found her shop on East Broadway Street destroyed the morning after the tornado.

“[Firefighters] were radioing in everywhere that got hit like on Broadway,” Brown said. “I was in shock because even though I knew we were going to have one (tornado) I didn’t expect for it to affect us directly.”

Her boutique has reopened in a Red Buildings storage unit on East Broadway Street, but finds it challenging starting over. 

“I know it’s going to take a while for the town to get back to normal, probably years,” Brown said. “It took me a long time to build it up to what it was, and it’s definitely not starting over, but it felt like that.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery plan, adopted by Joplin, Missouri after they experienced an EF-5 tornado on May 22, 2011, is being used by Mayfield city officials as a recovery guide. With this guide, a long term recovery group was established in February to work with volunteers, donations and talk to those displaced about their needs. All nonprofits and organizations are coordinating with FEMA for efforts to restore the town.

McConnell worked to ensure FEMA reimbursement and the framer representation reimbursement was included in the federal funding bill, which will provide more resources to the community. 

Economics, Finance and Resources 

O’Nan said the Mayfield government normally operated from an $11 million budget. The government earned money through inventory, payroll and property taxes. O’Nan said Mayfield lost so much property and businesses that the revenue made from property and payroll can no longer be collected. 

The revenue from the property and payroll tax was a significant portion of the government income and is no longer available. O’Nan said she was worried the city would go bankrupt but that Beshear has assured her the state would not let that happen.

According to CNN, Biden promised to cover 100% of clean up costs for the first 30 days after the tornado hit. 

“I think there’s like 75 more million dollars in [Housing and Urban Development] grants that will be available to us, so all of that just opens up dollars for us with the state government,” O’Nan said. 

Before the Kentucky legislative regular session ended on April 14, 2022, the General Assembly voted to put $145 million into State Aid Funding for Emergencies (SAFE). $45 million of the fund will immediately help local schools and secure temporary housing for those displaced by the tornado. 

Revitalization 

O’Nan said the city government buildings were all destroyed except for two small fire departments. The rest of the buildings had significant damage and will be demolished. The City Council will be heading the design and rebuilding process of their buildings. The city is currently working to bring in previous and new businesses to the downtown area.

Mayfield residents have been active participants in the revitalization process. One community event allowed residents to voice ideas on how to enhance Mayfield. After categorizing the sticky notes, O’Nan said some of the top themes people echoed were downtown renovation, health, wealth, quality of living, education and transportation.

“A lot of people realize we have a chance to start all over, and so they want modernization, but they want to keep the root down on traditions,” O’Nan said. “They don’t want any of our traditions to go away.”

The most common suggestions from the community included a more walkable downtown, green spaces, crosswalks at the public schools and a few national chain stores.

“This is the fun part,” O’Nan said. “This is where you begin to pick out the drapes and the wallpaper because this is how we’re going to design what the town is going to look like.”

Mayfield’s Hope for a Stronger Community

Like the rest of the state, Mayfield had begun to reopen its doors and recover since the COVID-19 pandemic hit two years ago. Businesses and other organizations were still dealing with pandemic effects and losses when the tornado hit.

O’Nan said the resiliency of her community stuck with her the most. When organizations provided aid, she said people nationally and locally commented on the resiliency and independence of the community in taking care of themselves and each other.

“We’ve known every community has disasters, but not to this magnitude,” O’Nan said. “We’ve known that we are a close community when needed, but seeing and hearing from the thousands of people who have been here from across the United States, there’s something about this community, the resilience of it.” 

O’Nan said the greatest thing people can do to help with efforts is to contact the Long Term Recovery Committee on how to help at www.RecoverMayfieldGraves.com