NPPF

Clara Lutz finds her goats alive and well as she searches for her dog Lil’ Bit the morning after the tornado in Earlington, Ky., Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021. Lutz and her two grandsons, three-month-old Dallas and 15-month old Kaden, braced for the tornado in the bathroom. As the boys lay in the bathtub, the force of the tornado ripped the bathtub from out of the floor and away from their grandmother’s grasp, sending them flying into the unknown. Sheriff’s deputies would later find the upside-down tub in the debris of her home with the two boys alive underneath, as reported in The New York Times. On the night of Dec. 10 until the following morning, a series of tornadoes touched down across five states. The deadliest of these tornadoes traveled more than 160 miles across the western part of Kentucky, leaving a trail of death, displacement, and destruction. According to the National Weather Service, at least 55 people were killed from this particular tornado weeks before Christmas. These images depict the devastation and aftermath in the days, hours after the tornado hit west Kentucky.