The death toll across Kentucky is climbing, after numerous strong tornadoes traced their way through the Commonwealth Friday night, along with enormous hail stones and damaging winds.
In an update Saturday morning, Governor Andy Beshear reported that 14 individuals were killed in Kentucky, particularly in the London, Somerset areas, and they are expecting that total to only grow, with numerous others injured in the storms. The governor did declare a state of emergency before the storms hit, which will pave the way for recovery efforts.
Right now, the governor says emergency personnel are still in the rescue phase of operations, with over 100,000 homes without power and five counties having declared their own states of emergency.
At this time, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is reporting minimal roadway impacts across the state.
Luckily, western Kentucky managed to get through the night with no fatalities, even with an apparent tornado touching down in Elkton and causing large amounts of damage on Blue Hole Road, destroying a trailer and chicken houses.
Christian County had widespread damages, with trees downed, power poles snapped and roofs sustaining hefty damages—the same is true for Trigg County, where a tornado was also sighted in the Canton area.
Pennyrile Electric is still hard at work this morning to restore power to members, with just over 7,000 members still without power as of about noon Saturday. They had no timeline on total restoration, but were advising people to expect extended outages, though they were happy to report that additional crews had arrived from out of town to help with restoration efforts.