The death toll from the Kentucky tornado: 77 deaths, breaking the record for the deadliest storm in state history
The group of tornadoes that destroyed entire towns and thousands of homes in Kentucky last weekend is now the deadliest in state history.
Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir said Friday the death toll is as high as 77, making these storms the deadliest in Kentucky history.
Three of the dead on Beshear's list are people he said, "we went missing and are from Hopkins County, but either died outside Hopkins County or the coroner was not informed," so there could be a contradiction.
He said he thought the state's death toll was correct - 17 - but "I pray that this is wrong."
Bashir added that 16 people are still missing, most in Hopkins County.
The best estimate for casualties at this time is 138 people who went to emergency rooms for care during or shortly after the storms, Bashir said. He said he did not know their current situation.
Until this month, the deadliest tornado event in Kentucky was in Jefferson County in 1890, when 76 people were killed, according to the National Weather Service.
The EF4 tornado caused $2.5 million in damage, about $7.6 billion in 2021.
The National Weather Service's office in Paducah announced Wednesday that the hurricane that hit Mayfield was tentatively identified as an EF4, the second-worst violence category.
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An official estimate of how much damage the recent hurricanes caused was not released, but Beshear previously said, "it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars at least."
"We are hurting," Bashir said Thursday. "We still hurt, and it still hurts so much. But we're not broken."
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