Tornado destroys addiction recovery center
The Campbellsville location of Lake Cumberland Recovery was destroyed in a tornado December 11th.
SOMERSET, Ky. (WTVQ) – After losing everything but their lives in last week’s tornadoes, the Lake Cumberland Recovery Center in Campbellsville was forced to relocate. An E-F3 tornado ripped through Taylor County, leveling most of Quisenberry Road in Campbellsvillle, including a rehab facility housing 16 men. Director of the Campbellsville location, Jefra Hines, says she got the call about what happened around 3:30 Saturday morning.
“Not being able to communicate with them with the power out and no phone service and the entire Quisenberry Road being blocked and not being able to access it, you know I remember I just sat in the car driving out there to where we met with the emergency service vehicles and just bawling crying, praying just let everybody be accounted for,” says Hines.
Hines says it was a miracle everyone left that night alive with only three people going to the hospital for minor injuries. Hines says that alone is a blessing since one of their neighbors on Quisenberry lost their life in the tornado.
“What they went through and lived through that night was traumatic, just like it was for everyone else affected in our community,” says Hines. “But they know that they’re safe now and they’re processing that and they’re dealing with what they lived through and what they went through and we’re just trying to be hopeful for them and for their future.”
Hines says everything in the Campbellsville building was destroyed by the storm, except for the Bible they left sitting on the mantle. She says most of the 16 clients had to move with nothing but the clothes on their back to the unfinished building in Somerset. For some of these men, they didn’t come in with much to begin with, so losing it in the storm was heartbreaking.
Lake Cumberland Recovery says its new building in Somerset wasn’t scheduled to open until January 1st and still had some finishing details to be worked out, but it was functional enough for the men from Campbellsville to move to.
“The clients that we treat feel like they live in a tornado pretty much everyday until they come into treatment you know,” says Hines. “That was their safe place and that was their center.”
For now, Hines says the recovery center is working to get all of the men basic needs like socks, shoes and personal hygiene. To contact Lake Cumberland Recovery about how you can help and what donations are needed, check out the website HERE or the Facebook page HERE.
