Storm Kills One Mercer County Woman, Causes Extensive Damage
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Robert Moore
Herald Staff
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One woman is dead after a storm rampaged through Mercer County and Central Kentucky early Monday.
On Monday, May 27 at 12:53 a.m., first responders were dispatched to a residence for a tree on a house with a possible unresponsive person inside, Mercer County Emergency Management Director Brad Cox said. Units arrived on scene and transported one patient to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The woman, who has been identified in media reports as Julie Sterling, 67, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Sterling’s spouse was transported to the hospital, but he’s expected to be okay, Cox said.
Including the fatility here in Mercer County, at least five people died in Monday’s storm, according to media reports.
Cox was out Tuesday with officials from the National Weather Service Emergency assessing damage.
At Tuesday’s fiscal court meeting, Judge-Executive Sarah Steele said the county road department will not be mowing this week and will instead focus on cleaning up roadsides. Both county and state road departments were out cleaning roads Monday.
The storms, which began with one on Sunday noon with 70 mile per hour winds that knocked down trees and power lines and left nearly 300 homes without power. The second came around later that night and left approximately 2,000 homes without power.
The National Weather Service has confirmed three tornadoes: an EF-1 tornado in Meade County, an EF-1 tornado that crossed through Butler and Warren counties and an EF-3 tornado whose path crossed over 35 miles through Lyon, Caldwell and Hopkins counties. Straight-line wind damage was confirmed in Grayson, Mercer, Garrard, Logan and Simpson counties. Surveys continue in Barren, Metcalfe, Monroe, Cumberland and Clinton counties where at least one additional EF1 tornado has been identified with wind speeds peaking at 105 mph in Cumberland County.
According to the state government, there are currently 9,903 power outages, down from over 215,144 earlier this week. Twenty-six counties and 12 cities have declared a state of emergency. Currently, Pennyrile State Park is sheltering 11 households and the state has provided five travel trailer units to Clay County for families who were displaced.
The Civil Air Patrol is piloting aerial surveys to capture images of the damage in the affected areas. Those who have experienced storm damage should take photographs before cleaning up and report the damages to local county emergency management officials.
