Tornado victims include seven members of Kentucky family
A week after a deadly tornado outbreak, families of the victims are still processing the terrible toll.
Authorities on Thursday found the body of a Kentucky teenager who had been missing. Nyssa Brown was the seventh member of her family to die in the tornado that hit Bowling Green last week, and family and neighbors say they are reeling. Elsewhere in Kentucky, Jason Cummins has been gathering mementos from the debris of the home his mom, Marsha Hall, and aunt, Carole Grisham, shared. The sisters were Dawson Springs fixtures who had worked at a funeral home helping others through their grief.
At least 90 people have been confirmed dead across multiple states after more than 40 tornadoes pummeled a wide area. Officials say 76 people died in Kentucky alone.
Here are some of the people who perished during the tornado outbreak.
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Siblings Marsha Hall, 72, and Carole Grisham, 80, were referred to as “the sisters” around Dawson Springs, Kentucky, friend Jenny Beshear Sewell said. They were often in each other’s company and had lived in the same home for years, according to Hall’s son, Jason Cummins. They were there together Friday night when a tornado approached and ripped through the house, killing both of them.
“They really just took care of each other,” said Cummins, 43. “It was always the two of them. They were best friends.”
Cummins said he texted his aunt and mother “good morning” and told them he loved them every day. On the day of the storm, he added that they should “watch the weather.” He was tracking the storm on Facebook that night and told Hall to get Grisham and get in the hallway.
“She said, ‘I cleaned out the closet in case I need to get in there.’” Cummins recalled. “She said, ‘I love you.’ She texted each of my siblings and said she loved them.”
Cummins said he texted later but didn’t hear back.
Hall was still working at a funeral home, where she arranged flowers and assisted grieving families. Grisham had also worked there in the past as had the sisters’ mother.
Beshear Sewell, who owned the funeral home, said Hall was always thinking about what a family would need.
“It could be finances,” she said. “It could be that grandmother is in a wheelchair and when they show up we’re going to have to do this and that. It was just everything.”
Recent health problems had limited Grisham’s mobility, and Beshear Sewell said she’s convinced Hall decided not to leave her and seek shelter elsewhere. She recalled that Hall would pick her grandson up from school even when he was old enough to walk home himself and the day was nice because she did not want anything to happen to him.
Cummins has been sifting through the debris at the home, keeping anything he finds intact — a doorknob, a key. He said he found his mom’s purse with cash she had taken out of the bank to hand out at Christmas.
“I don’t know how it’s going to feel the day when I don’t come up here and look for something,” he said. “That’s when I think it will hit me.”
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Carl Hogan, 60, was “incredibly devoted” to his wife of 41 years, and he was looking forward to getting her back home in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, following a stay in a hospital and nursing home that began in February, said daughter Katie Fields, who lived only a mile or so from her father.
“He was a retired long-haul trucker who had settled down in that small town to try to enjoy his golden years near my kids (and) along the banks of our little Tradewater River,” Fields said in an message to The Associated Press.
The tornado left the plan in shreds. Fields said she spoke to her father on the phone just moments before the twister hit and made a desperate bid to get to his home afterward.
“I ran up & down his street screaming for him & throwing pieces of wood & metal trying to see if he was under the debris. I finally found his vehicles & from that could tell where his home was supposed to be & that it was totally gone,” she wrote.
Hogan’s body was located about a day later, and Fields said now she does not want him remembered as “the guy who died in the tornado.” Hogan loved to fish and loved his green Chevrolet truck, she said, and he was a fan of the TV show “Yellowstone.” His four grandchildren “were his world,” she said, and Hogan was a “fantastic” father.
“He was religious but it was a quiet, private faith,” Fields said. “He was truly just a good man.
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Ernie Aiken, 86, decided to ride the storm out in his trailer in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, despite the looming danger.
The Vermont native served in the U.S. Army at Fort Campbell and then settled in the town, said son Tony Aiken. He started two auto repair stations in the area and continued to work on people’s cars at a shop next to his home until his death. The shop was a magnet for the community, and guys would come and hang out, taking advantage of seating he put out.
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