Tornado-slammed parts of Kentucky face long recovery
CTV
Workers, volunteers and members of the National Guard were spreading across tornado-damaged areas of Kentucky to assist with recovery tasks ranging from replacing thousands of damaged utility poles to delivering bottles of drinking water.
The tornado outbreak Friday that killed at least 88 people in five states -- 74 of them in Kentucky -- cut a path of damage that stretched from Arkansas, where a nursing home was destroyed, to Illinois, where an Amazon distribution center was heavily damaged.
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll could grow as authorities continued to work around debris that slowed recovery efforts. Nearly 450 National Guard members have been mobilized in the state, and 95 of them are doing fatality searches.
"With this amount of damage and rubble, it may be a week or even more before we have a final count on the number of lost lives," the governor said.
Kentucky authorities said the sheer level of destruction was hindering their ability to tally the damage.
