ADAIRVILLE — Lee Robey had precious little time Monday to break his work routine at Robey Farms and huddle with his 83-year-old mother and two farm employees in his boyhood home while a tornado raged outside.

It took a comparably small amount of time for the tornado to destroy vehicles, houses and offices and toss around animals.

“It was just a normal day,” Robey, the owner of the Logan County dairy cattle operation, said of the hours before the storm. “I had no warning until I actually saw the funnel cloud.”

Robey and his mother, Jane, emerged largely unscathed, while the two employees, Brenda Kelly and Ashley Barth, were treated at a nearby hospital for minor injuries, Robey said.

The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado touched down Monday afternoon in Logan County.

The NWS rated it as a high-end EF2 tornado with maximum wind speeds estimated at 135 mph. It caused damage to several properties between Kirby and Pearson roads. The EF scale measures the strength of tornadoes on a scale of 0 to 5, with EF5 being the most powerful.

Robey Farms property along Schochoh Road appeared to have the most damage. 

Terry Cole, Logan County deputy emergency management director, was with an official from the NWS this morning attempting to assess the damage and map the tornado’s path. 

“So far, I’m up to eight houses (damaged). I’d say six of them are pretty well gone, and the other two are repairable,” Cole said.

Several grain bins and barns were also destroyed, and several tobacco and corn crops sustained damage, but only seven people were injured, and all of their injuries were minor, according to Cole.

“Nothing serious, just cuts, bruises and bumps,” Cole said.

The tornado appears to have touched down in the area of Ky. 96 and traveled east, according to Cole.

Robey seemed somewhat stunned in the storm’s aftermath, as a dried, thin trail of blood extended up his head from his left ear, though he said he felt fine beyond some small cuts on his head from glass shards.

He said some horses were injured in the storm and were expected to be put down, and a few cattle were injured as well, but the milking farm along Kirby Road avoided damage as a backup generator kept it powered through the storm.

“I don’t know about all the damage,” Robey said. “I haven’t really got my arms wrapped around it yet.”

Pointing to the rubble where his home had stood, Robey said that the portion that remained intact was where he, his mother and two employees sought shelter, crouching next to a bathtub.

This was his second experience up close with a tornado, as Robey recalled the time in 1963 when another tornado damaged the same house while he watched the storm from a school bus traveling to the farm.

“The driver stopped, and we could see the funnel cloud,” Robey said.

Emergency personnel, firefighters, law enforcement and assorted volunteers congregated on Schochoh Road outside the farm to assess the damage and clear debris.

A wooden fence across the street from the farm was reduced to splinters at several points. Near the front of the driveway, a pickup truck with smashed windows rested on its side several feet from a car that had apparently been damaged from being tossed in the storm.

Several barns and outbuildings at Robey Farms sustained heavy damage, and a number of other houses and barns in the tornado’s path along Kirby Road and Pearson Road were also damaged.

“You look around and all you’ve got is minor injuries, that’s truly amazing,” said Trooper Jonathan Biven, spokesman for the Kentucky State Police Post 3, who was at the scene.

A number of people in neighboring Simpson County reported seeing a funnel cloud or tornado, and the storm dropped large hail on the area.

Simpson County Emergency Management Director Robert Palmer received reports of golf-ball sized hail, he said.

Beyond a few downed trees, however, the county was largely spared the damage that Logan County received.

“We’ve been lucky,” Palmer said. “If that thing had taken a little different path, it was big enough to cause some pretty serious injuries, if not worse.”

Robey said he expects the cleanup and recovery at his property to be a long process, even with help from others in the community, but he is anxious to begin.

“We’ll take it one step at a time and work though it,” Robey said.