On Sunday morning in a small Kentucky city, the sun shone and birds chirped.
They provided an incongruent backdrop to a scene that looked like a war zone. Just two days before, a fierce tornado carved a 16-mile path of destruction through Laurel County, Ky., and in its county seat of London, the damage was clear: roofs ripped from homes, tree limbs sheared off, cars left as twisted hunks of metal. And several residents dead.
By the afternoon, the Sunshine Hills neighborhood of London was filled with the cacophonous beeping of backhoes, accompanied by an army of faith-based volunteers.
Those volunteers were among the many people in London, a city of 8,000 about 80 miles south of Lexington, who worked together this weekend to help not only those in need but also the whole community as it tried to process the disaster. Amid the grief and devastation, ensuring displaced people got the necessary supplies and assistance was top of mind for many.
“It didn’t seem right to be sitting at home with our property being untouched with so many people struggling,” said Hannah Clark, who lives in neighboring Pulaski County but came to London to volunteer.
The tornado was part of a storm system that tore through the central United States starting Friday, killing at least 28 people. Of those, 19 died in Kentucky, all but two in Laurel County. Outside of Kentucky, Missouri was also hit hard: Seven people died in that state, with five in St. Louis.
Most of the victims in Laurel County were killed in Sunshine Hills, according to Gilbert Acciardo, a public affairs official for the county sheriff’s office, who did not give an exact number. Many of them were older, ranging in age from 50 to 70.
Vanessa Mullins is one of the Sunshine Hills residents whose home was destroyed. Late Friday night, the sound of a thundering whistle rumbled through the hilly subdivision, she said, and she huddled in the bathroom with her son and her boyfriend. The house shook, shampoo bottles fell, dust fluttered from the ceiling — and then, quiet.
They opened the door, and much of the house was gone. Somebody else’s washing machine cylinders and mattresses were in the kitchen. The bedroom had no walls.
Then, they said they heard plaintive cries from a neighbor whose foot was so badly injured that it was later amputated. And they saw that their next-door neighbors, an older couple who used to save apples from their tree for Ms. Mullins’s pet pigs, had been killed — having died in each other’s arms.
“It was like the worst horror movie you could imagine,” said Ms. Mullins’s boyfriend, Dewayne Broughton.
Over the weekend, officials and residents of London were working around the clock to provide support. Mr. Acciardo said his agency had been focusing on conducting welfare checks. A local electric line services company, PraXel, offered to subsidize hotel stays for displaced residents. Shelters were set up at churches and campgrounds.
When Caleb Bryant, 18, heard about the tornado, he quickly mobilized to offer assistance. All he could think about, he said, was how people could be trapped under debris.
In the early hours of Saturday, Mr. Bryant searched for survivors in affected areas with a friend and two volunteer firefighters. They worked through a harrowing scene: the shell of a trailer lifted onto the roof of a house, another trailer that had slammed into and wrapped around a light pole, and cars strewn everywhere.
“We were all just trying to put emotions behind us and work to find everybody,” Mr. Bryant said. In the end, all the people he had checked on were accounted for.
Residents described London as a small, close community in a rural part of southeastern Kentucky. The city lies near the Daniel Boone National Forest, a rugged preserve of sandstone cliffs and steep ravines. Each year, London hosts the World Chicken Festival, including a look-a-like contest for Colonel Sanders, the KFC mascot, and a chicken cook-off. (The festival was disrupted last year by the remnants of Hurricane Helene moving across the Appalachian Mountains.)
“We are a very close-knit family,” said Cassidy Johnson, 22, who helped deliver boxes at the Faith Assembly of God Church in London on Saturday. “Kentucky’s our home, and we try to do whatever we can to help out with anything,” she added.
On Saturday and Sunday, the church — where the Kentucky State Police set up a station for people to report missing loved ones — was filled with people handing out food, clothing and household supplies or delivering items to those affected across the county.
“It’s people helping people, neighbor helping neighbor,” Rodney Goodlett, the church’s lead pastor, said.
Help was coming from afar, too.
Early Sunday, Pete Thiel waited at a gas station in Richmond, Ky., for a fellow member of Minuteman Disaster Response, an organization dedicated to helping in the aftermath of natural disasters, who was coming from the Cincinnati area. From Richmond, they planned to drive 40 miles southeast to London to assess the storm damage.
Small rural communities are often underequipped to respond to disasters that affect hundreds of people. And Kentucky was still dealing with deadly floods in February and April.
“We try to find places where the local response can’t handle” the cleanup, said Mr. Thiel (who is not related to the tech billionaire with a similar name).
Ms. Mullins, the Sunshine Hills resident, initially felt overwhelmed by her loss, struggling to do much but sit and stare at what remained of her home.
“My favorite part of the day was coming home, seeing my animals and relaxing,” said Ms. Mullins, who has about a dozen pets, including four pigs, five dogs, two cats and a duck. “And now it’s gone.”
But as she lay in a hotel room bed on Saturday, she gave herself a pep talk. She would accept the help of volunteers that she had earlier declined. And she would summon the strength to begin picking through what remained of her home — and her life.
On Sunday, alongside friends and volunteers, she picked through remnants of the house she bought three years ago, having realized her dream of homeownership. She let out a joyful shriek when someone discovered her suede tasseled purse that had her wallet in it. Her high school letter jacket was found. And most of her pets were found alive, including Ookie, her 300-pound hog.
“Life goes on,” she said. “I told myself, ‘You’ve got to keep going.’”
Corinne Boyer contributed reporting from London, Ky.
Isabelle Taft is a reporter covering national news and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their career.
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