DAVID MAMARIL HOROWITZ

david.horowitz@bgdailynews.com

The severe weather that ravaged the region Friday brought thunderstorms and tornadoes that devastated the midwest and south, killing 18 across Kentucky, according to state updates as of Sunday afternoon.

The storm system also hospitalized 10 Kentuckians, leaving them in critical condition, and killed nine outside the state, the Associated Press reported Saturday.

A powerful tornado that ravaged homes was reported in Laurel County and the neighboring Pulaski County. The former, in London, was where 17 of the state’s reported deaths occurred, while the latter was where remaining death occurred, according to the Office of the Governor.

On Saturday, the Laurel County Fire Department reported the death of Major Leslie Roger Leatherman, who was fatally injured as he responded to the tornado.

State Emergency Management Director Eric Gibson said that hundreds of homes took damage, according to the AP. An emergency shelter was put up at a high school where donations of necessities such as food were arriving, according to the AP.

In Bowling Green and surrounding areas, the Friday storm weather felled trees, caused widespread power outages and brought large hail that damaged buildings and vehicles across the area.

As of Saturday evening, Bowling Green Municipal Utilities reported on the social media website X that a total of 7,200 were impacted by the storms. All but 131 had power restored, with more than 100 of them outside of southcentral Kentucky.

As of Saturday night, Warren Rural Electric Co-Op Corporation reported on X that more than 90% of 24,300 impacted had power restored – and on Sunday morning, WRECC reported that 1,400 remained without power. Thirty-eight poles were broken, according to WRECC.

Downed trees made up the main damage the City of Bowling Green identified across the city in last night’s storms, Debi West, the city’s public information officer, said Saturday.

In Bowling Green, Public Works crews worked through Friday night to clear trees from roadways, chopping them up and taking them back to the agency’s operations center, West said. While BGPW can’t go on private property, something that falls into a roadway becomes the agency’s responsibility to clear, she said.

These teams of two dumped eight 20-yard dumpsters of vegetative debris (trees, branches, etc.) into the landfill, West said. Some debris was pushed off to the side that the city will get to on Monday, West added.

Graves Gilbert reported “significant damage” at the Main Clinic, at 201 Park St., in a Sunday social media post. “Patient appointments next week may be impacted, but we will continue to keep you abreast of any updates,” the organization posted.

The Mount Moriah Cemetery was closed through the weekend due to downed trees, as the city requires special heavy equipment to avoid knocking down grave markers, West said.

“Staff is clearing debris and ask that the public to avoid those areas to allow staff access to the area without disruption,” the City of Bowling Green posted on social media Saturday concerning cemeteries. “Due to the storm damage, there are several areas throughout all cemeteries that will continue to be cleared over the next couple of weeks.”

A light pole went down on the greenways trail along Cemetery Road where vehicle tracks make it appear a driver struck it, West said.

Fire Station 8 and a police cruiser took hail damage, West said. Another cruiser was damaged when a tree fell on it; no one was inside, West said.

The storms followed massive cuts at National Weather Service offices.

Experts have expressed worry over how these will affect warnings during disasters such as tornadoes, and experts have called a vacancy rate higher than 20% a critical problem, according to the AP.

The Jackson office, responsible for the area around London, had a vacancy rate of 25% in March, and the Louisville staff was down 29%, according to weather service employee calculations obtained by the AP. The Louisville office didn’t have a permanent boss, the meteorologist in charge, as of March, according to staffing data obtained by AP.