First, let me say that we are safe, praise G-d. We live 2.6 miles from the first reported touchdown in Bernard ridge. We are in Russel County and the NWS is preliminarily saying that we had a high level, EF-2 or lower level EF-3 tornado. The tornado was likely an EF-4 by the time it hit London. I watched the storm come right over my house, on radar and watched the damage unfold, over radar. My community is decimated. We are still trying to figure out which way is up. We are on the western edge, at the beginning of the line of the damage. The far eastern edge of the storm is where the worst damage is. An alert came out last night warning that looters are prowling the damage and to be ware/warning looters not to loot. Lots of good folks and some pretty big parasites. KY is resilient, in time, though the scars still linger, we will heal.

Second, I cannot believe how obtuse everyone was. The local weather teams were warning people to be weather aware and had been for days. The air was super heavy and you could feel the storms coming in. The NWS started roiling out watches and my neighbors didn’t care. The NWS SPC had been talking about these storms for literally days. No one knew, or cared. I checked on my neighbors before the storm hit, they were ambivalent about the pending danger. Friday morning, I canceled a doctors appointment and the receptionist while understanding, was stymied that myself and a few others where locking down for the storms. My wife and I packed go bags. I have my bug out supplies at hand and can quickly pack up in a couple of minutes. We filled all of our pitchers and containers with extra water, made sure everything was ready, and locked down. When the warnings started coming, no one, aside from one weather guy online in our town, was talking about the weather. We made our way to the basement and, for the duration of the storm, the sirens in Jamestown KY didn’t go off once.

I’ve checked on friends and family and everyone but one is accounted for. We can’t find one friend. Praying he is ok. Universally, every person I spoke to was shocked at the storms. It’s like everyone was in a bubble. People went about their day and ignored what was obviously a serious threat. People went to work, business continued as usual, and one set of friends just shrugged and went to bed. Over and over again, people are acting like the storms were a surprise. News flash-THEY WEREN’T! The NWS did what they always do. They had calls, issued mesoscale discussions, everything. The local leaders, both government and business, ignored them. Usually, the local authorities publish storms shelter locations for big storms. This time, they didn’t. I don’t know why. Even our governor issues a pre-emptive state of emergency. Still, no one was paying attention.

A big part of being a prepper is being aware. Be aware. Seek knowledge, adjust your preps. I check the weather EVERY day. I review the radar models, I review the NWS SPC, and I review the commercial sites with free information AND I check on the weather professionals. It takes 5 min a day. No one could have stopped the damage. No one but G-d. But, the loss of life and the injuries could have been avoided of people had just been paying attention. It’s frustrating and heart breaking.

Lastly, people have got to stop politicizing this. There were failures everywhere. As a prepper, if you drop to “it’s someone else’s fault” line, you will miss the big picture. Be accountable for your own safety and check on your community.

Edit-we live in Jamestown KY. Jamestown was largely spared. The areas south and west of us appear to be ok. There were some down lines and trees near Wolfcreek Dam but it appeared to be ok otherwise. North and East of us is a different story. Half the town in Russel Springs, just north of us, last night had no power or water. We had the power flicker and flash but it stayed on. Internet and cell has been pretty spotty. We will see what happens in the next couple of days.