DAWSON SPRINGS, Ky. — Jeremy Harper had just gotten to his mother’s house when the tornado hit.
“I told him I was scared, (and) to come over there with me," said Harper's mother, Barbara Carter. "He didn’t have time to react. He sat on the couch, and then all of the sudden (the tornado) came and everything fell on him."
When Carter emerged from the bathroom after the storm had passed, her home was destroyed. She screamed for her son, who responded from beneath a large pile of debris.
He would be trapped under the collapsed trailer and a fallen tree for nearly three hours.
Neighbors helped pull Harper from the rubble and he was lucky enough to sustain only minor injuries. But both he and his mother lost their homes that night. And like so many Dawson Springs residents, they would spend the following months trying to pick up the pieces.
“If I had stayed over (at my house), I’d be dead," Harper said. "That entire trailer was gone."
It’s been six months since that horrific night on Dec. 10, 2021 when a historic EF-4 tornado tore across Western Kentucky. It killed more than 70 people statewide, including 13 in Dawson Springs. Like Harper and his mother, 75 percent of this small Hopkins County town was displaced.
The road to recovery hasn’t been easy.
The 'roadblocks' of rebuilding
According to Hopkins County Director of Emergency Management Jesse Breedlove, the city is slowly beginning to rebuild. Volunteers are scheduled through the summer to help with the last phase of clean-up and the first stages of reconstruction.
