This month marks two years since a catastrophic EF four tornado tore through western Kentucky, claiming the lives of 80 people.

The city of Mayfield suffered the most damage after taking a direct hit by the tornado that struck in the early morning hours of December 11th, 20, 21.

Some of the survivors of the disaster have been sharing their experiences as part of the Mayfield, Kentucky 2021 Oral History Project through the University of Kentucky Library's Louis B Nunn Center for Oral History.

The people behind the project.

Call it a hopeful collection of interviews that commemorates the tragedy, also capturing stories of survival, resilience and growth.

I remember I just started screaming the Lord's Prayer and even then I was screaming at the top of my lungs.

I could still barely hear myself.

I saw in real time when the tornado hit Mayfield.

And even though I'm not from western Kentucky, it felt a lot like the same sort of demographic and size of my little, little town that I grew up in.

And so I instantly just felt this kinship with this town that had been hit, that it could have been my hometown.

And I wondered what would happen to Mayfield, not just in the weeks and months after the tornado, but in the years.

Dr. Fry reached out to me and really started talking about this project idea.

Building into this model was the idea that that he would do two rounds of interviews at least, and interview people over time, repeatedly develop a relationship with them that was really attractive to me from an archival standpoint.

Having documentation of that day, but also having documentation of the recovery as it progressed, I think was really an important dimensions.

I really wanted everyone's voice to be heard from the community.

And that was the beginning of what would become really a two year long project.

From my perspective.

Interviewing can be an incredibly healing event to go through, and and I think for that reason, I think Dr. Fry had had a really good success rate in terms of getting people to to agree to be interviewed and share some unbelievably personal stories and powerful stories in these interviews.

So so I think this community was was certainly ready to share their stories.

When it hit our house.

And we were in the direct line of it.

It hit our house.

It sounded like a jet airplane or something was landing on top of our house.

You could feel the pool and the suction that it had as it was pulling on our bodies.

My daughter was screaming and crying.

There was it was like ten trains coming at once.

And you could feel the ground move and your ears are popping.

And not only pop and it felt like it was sucking in your eardrums out of your ear.

I still get angry, and I was trying so hard to be positive that I forgot it was okay to be sad.

This is a traumatic event and clearly, if you listen to these interviews, there are some extremely powerful and traumatizing memories that that are sort of being dredged up.

But Dr. Frye, how she's a compassionate interviewer.

I think she's somebody who who is truly listening and she connects with the interviewees in some pretty profound ways.

I think it's a stereotype, but probably one that's true, that Kentuckians love storytelling, and this is not different for the people of Mayfield.

But I think because everyone had been traumatized by the tornado, they didn't necessarily share their stories with their friends and their neighbors.

And so me asking as a somewhat of an outside outsider of Mayfield to tell me the story allowed them to open up and really tell me the story.

And it's entirety.

I feel like the resulting collection is something that is not just a powerful recollection of a traumatic event, but it's really a humanizing one.

You can hear more survivor stories by going to the Libby Nunn Center for Oral Histories website.