There were no reports of serious injuries after a swarm of tornadoes on the afternoon of July 9 left scattered destruction in the region, including at a Posey County, Indiana, factory. The storm system was powered by Hurricane Beryl, an early-season Category 5 Atlantic Ocean hurricane that had weakened into a post-tropical cyclone the morning of July 9.
Later that day, Kenco, on Indiana 62 east of Mount Vernon, was hit by an EF-3 tornado with peak winds of 140 mph. (An EF-5 tornado is considered the most destructive.) Kenco saw half its roof removed and the collapse of several large segments of outer walls, according to the National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky.
Kenco has headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and it provides logistics services across 33 states. Evansville Businessย reached out to officials with the company and did not hear back.
Before striking Kenco, the same EF-3 tornado caused tree debris and flattened crops near Port Road, just south of the factory. It continued north of Kenco, overturning semitrailers and train cars near Old Highway 62 and damaging roofs of homes and farm buildings along the way. The Zone by Maryscotts, a restaurant in Mount Vernon, cited damage ย in its decision to close temporarily, writing on July 12 via Facebook that โthe amount of product loss is overwhelming.โ
The weather service confirmed a total of seven twisters in Posey and Gibson counties in Indiana as well as Union County, Kentucky, and โthere are still a couple of areas of damage we are taking a look at,โ says Keith Cooley, a lead meteorologist in Paducah.
Two EF-1 tornadoes, with peak winds of 100-105 mph, blew through the Union County communities of Grove Center and Uniontown, uprooting trees, damaging crops, and leaving mild to moderate home damage.
The weather service says another confirmed EF-1 tornado (peak winds 105 mph) in Posey County bent a power pole on Oliver Springfield Road and damaged trees, while an EF-2 twister packing 120 mph gusts began on the north side of Poseyville and did not lift until reaching Owensville, in Gibson County. It struck trees and crops, snapped a power pole, and collapsed homes as well as numerous farm structures and outbuildings. A cemetery in Owensville also sustained damage, according to WFIE-TV.
A seventh tornado โ this one another EF-1 south of the village of Francisco in Gibson County โ was confirmed July 14 by the weather service.
The American Red Cross of Indiana set up a shelter at Mount Vernon Junior High School, 701 Tile Factory Road, for Posey County residents whose homes were hit.
CenterPoint Energy reported about 2,000 local power outages in the stormโs aftermath. Most were restored within hours, says Noah Stubbs, lead communication specialist.
The tornadoes in Southwestern Indiana and Western Kentucky were powerful remnants of Hurricane Beryl, whose forceful winds provoked 113 tornado warnings โ a record for a single day in July โ according to the Iowa Environmental Mesonet at Iowa State University. Upon making landfall early July 8 as a Category 1 hurricane, it wreaked far more havoc across CenterPointโs service area in communities surrounding Houston, Texas, where more than a million customers of the Houston-based utility were still without power as of July 11.
