The challenge here is to appropriately praise the efforts of everyone involved in the revival of large fractions of God’s country in Western Kentucky after a terrible tragedy without making it sound like some schmaltzy plot of a Hallmark Channels movie.
It’s fair to say that folks throughout the Commonwealth and elsewhere have risen to the occasion, as they often do in wake of disaster. A nation, torn by divisions, has consciously turned its attention to a slice of relatively anonymous middle American property to provide comfort and support, financial and otherwise, to folks whose lives and livelihoods have been rendered devastated by winds of incomprehensible power. This catastrophe ironically casts a light on the nation when it’s at its best – when it comes together.
But the story is just starting. The band of tornados, with winds reaching 206 miles per hour, took a wrecking ball to about 75 percent of Dawson Springs, a substantial slice of Bowling Green and a big hunk of Mayfield, one of my favorite stops during the old political campaign coverage days, featuring one of the most impressive county courthouses on the square downtown.
Now that courthouse, and much of the town, are pretty much gone. At least 75 people, probably more, lost their lives as part of the storm. Damage is certainly in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It will take years to rebuild what the tornado mowed down in a matter of seconds. But Kentuckians, the years have proved, are generally resilient characters. The scars will always be there but eventually they will be covered up by a return to what passes for normalcy.
It’s like Ma Joad said at the end of John Ford’s filming of The Grapes of Wrath: “But we keep a’comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out; they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, ’cause we’re the people.”
For some, especially those who lost loved ones, the infinite sadness will never end. And that realization always comes with the hopeless feeling there’s nothing you can say or do about it.
It would be madness to cite all of those who are hunkering down to help. There’s the guy who drove to Mayfield and set up a grill to feed the distraught. The rescue workers digging through the rubble. Those tending to a dog waiting for his/her owners to return. And most of all, of course, the neighbors helping neighbors.
Now, before we descend further into Hallmark sappiness, it might be a good idea to look at the lessons that can be taken away from this ongoing tragedy.
The residents of Western Kentucky will naturally bear the brunt of the recovery, mentally, physically, and financially. But the forever vilified governments, local, state, and federal, are already doing their best to ease the way.
Few Kentucky governors have faced as many misfortunes not of his own making than Gov. Andy Beshear, from the COVID pandemic to, now, the tornado aftermath. He has done a yeoman’s job, providing sympathy and understanding, keeping everyone updated and informed, and seeing to the recovery in a region where Democrats like Beshear aren’t particularly popular.
The same can be said for President Biden, who visited Dawson Springs and Mayfield, where he was briefly and unfortunately greeted with a chorus of “Let’s Go, Brandon,” a crude reception given that he was there to help, offering the resources of the federal government to pick up the tab for the first 30 days of the clean-up costs and dedicating the full services of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the effort. This is in addition to a federal emergency declaration that could provide aid and services to those who suffered the consequences of the storm’s impact.
The federal government, for various reasons, both real and imagined, will not win a popularity contest in Western Kentucky, which is fine. But if the region maintains any hope of digging itself out of this awful dilemma, Washington is going to have to play a major, probably the major, role in the restoration process because that’s where the money is. Biden promised that, “I intend to do whatever it takes as long as it takes to support your state, your local leaders, as you recover and rebuild, and you will recover and rebuild.”
He further noted, “There’s no red tornadoes and blue tornadoes.”
It should be noted that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Louisville, has expressed his sincere appreciation for Biden’s efforts in the wake of tragedy. McConnell has, of course, been Biden’s number one nemesis since he assumed the presidency in January. Whatever else might be said about McConnell, it should be noted that he has never hesitated seeking and supporting federal disaster assistance for wherever it was needed.
Not so for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Bowling Green, whose adopted hometown suffered extensive damage in residential neighborhoods. In a letter to Biden the morning after the disaster, Paul asked the president to “move expeditiously to approve the appropriate resources for our state,” citing the “loss of life and severe property damage.”
Fair enough. But that didn’t play well in some quarters. Paul has displayed a nasty habit of voting against disaster requests over the years from other American precincts in dire need. He has in the past, for instance, opposed legislation to provide billions of dollars in assistance to towns severely damaged by Hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, and Maria.
Paul told The Washington Post that he has “never been opposed to the program, ever” to provide relief to areas devastated by natural disasters, insisting that he objected to funding the expenditures with borrowed money rather than offsetting the disaster aid with spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
Paul further attacked those who have criticized those votes, asserting, “I think it’s sad that people on the left who have an agenda in the midst of people dying can’t come together to try to help people in their time of need but instead want to score cheap political points, most of which is untrue.”
Several points here. Despite his whining, it doesn’t appear that “people on the left” are standing in the way of relief for Western Kentucky, as he attempted to do on numerous occasions to other parts of the country. In fact, despite Paul’s past votes, support sounds unanimous and folks across the country are sending money and items Kentucky’s way. Deservedly so.
And it doesn’t appear Sen. Paul is all that opposed to making “cheap political points” in this “time of need” – the super PAC supporting his re-election to the Senate, Kentucky Freedom PAC, launched a website on Tuesday, amidst the mourning, “to serve as a base to expose the radical socialist ideas and beliefs of Senator Rand Paul’s Democratic opponent, Charles Booker.”
Paul obviously should have focused more about getting the money to the needy disaster victims in the past rather than expressing worry over where the money came from. His remarks also raise a question – will he oppose Western Kentucky relief at the proper time if the funding is not offset elsewhere in the budget?
Stay tuned.
By the way, Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R=SomewhereorotherLewisCounty, opposed legislation in 2013 to provide relief in wake of megastorm Sandy that resulted in extensive damage along the east coast. Barr, Massie and Rep. James Comer, R-Tompkinsville, opposed a 2019 bill providing $17.2 billion in disaster aid for areas hit by wildfires, hurricanes, volcanos, earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters.
Both Guthrie and Comer represent districts hard hit by the tornado. Might be a good time to eat crow.
It should also be noted that people from around the country are responding with donations of various kinds to help the beleaguered. A great example is famed chef Jose Andrés who traveled from Washington, D.C., to Kentucky on Saturday night – the day after the Commonwealth was struck — to provide meals for those overcome by the storm.
In a video posted on Twitter Saturday night, Andres said his organization had served more than 400 meals and he has plans to aid into the holiday season.
“There’s not much to say in those moments because you feel so powerless,” Andrés said. “We all need to be kinder to each other. We all need to respect each other because it’s already a very difficult world sometimes.”
