Searchers Continue To Look For Missing Kentucky Candle Factory Employees Following Tornado

Searchers are still trying to rescue workers working the night shift at Mayfield Consumer Products when a tornado closed in on the factory.

Now nearly a hundred people are missing and feared dead in the rubble of the factory, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Autumn Kirks, who happened to be there that tragic night, could take shelter. She says she turned away from her boyfriend, Lannis Ward, and when she looked back, he was gone.

He is now missing.

Kentucky’s governor warned that the state’s death toll from Friday’s tornado in Mayfield and other communities could exceed 100, Kirks and many others waited for news of their loved ones, but the rescue effort grew bleaker by the hour.

“Not knowing is worse than knowing right now,” she said. “I’m trying to stay strong. It’s very hard right now.”

The authorities said that forty of the 110 people who were inside making candles were inside the factory but pulled out after the twister struck. Rescuers had to crawl over dead bodies to rescue those living.

“It’ll be a miracle if we pull anybody else out of that. It’s now 15 feet deep of steel and cars on top of where the roof was,” Gov. Andy Beshear said on CNN. “Just tough.”

Kentucky was the worst-hit state in an unusual mid-December of twisters that spanned across the Midwest and the South.

“I can tell you from reports that I’ve received I know we’ve lost more than 80 Kentuckians. That number is going to exceed more than 100,” Beshear said.

“I’ve got towns that are gone, that are just, I mean gone. My dad’s hometown — half of it isn’t standing. It is hard for me to describe. I know people can see the visuals, but that goes on for 12 blocks or more in some of these places.”