A few inmates from Graves County jail helped with the rescue efforts at a candle factory in Kentucky, whose roof collapsed on Friday night after a tornado.
Kyanna Parsons-Perez, an employee who works at the Kentucky Candle Factory, shared how the inmates “were working their tails off to get us out.”
“They were helping,” Parsons-Perez said. “And to see inmates — because you know they could have used that moment to try to run away or anything — they did not. They were there. They were helping us.”
During a Sunday morning interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear stated that about 40 of 110 Kentuckians working in the factory at the time of the natural disaster had been rescued. And most of those working at the factory, he said, were residents of Mayfield.
Beshear, 44, added that he is not sure if anyone else will be found alive at the factory.
“I’m not sure that we’re going to see another rescue,” he told Tapper, 52. “I pray for it. It would be an incredibly welcome miracle. But I think it’s been since 3:30 yesterday morning that we found a live person.”
The governor also shared that the facility actually had a tornado plan in place and that most workers were able to shelter in what was considered the safest part of the building.
“But when you see the damage that this storm did — not just there, but across the area — I’m not sure there was a plan that would have worked,” Beshear said.
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Beshear revealed that over 80 people have died following what he called “the deadliest tornado event” in the Commonwealth’s history. Although he does expect the death toll to “exceed” 100 people and that the recovery process has been “slow.”
“I know people can see the visuals, but that goes on for 12 blocks or more in some of these places. And it’s going to take us time,” he told Tapper.
Beshear added, “[Do] you think you can go door to door to check on people and see if they’re okay? There are no doors! The question is, is there somebody in the rubble of thousands upon thousands of structures. I mean, it is devastating.”