Editor’s Note: Scott Jennings is a CNN political contributor. His father, Jeff Jennings, is a lifelong resident of Dawson Springs. To help other victims of the tornado, visit CNN’s Impact Our World page for a full list of options. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. View more opinion on CNN.
For the Jennings family, Dawson Springs, Kentucky, has always been home. The historically devastating tornadoes that ripped western Kentucky apart last weekend turned the town we love into a wasteland of debris, rubble and memories.
Gone are so many homes and lives of our cherished neighbors. Every house on Oak Heights, the street the Jennings family grew up on, has been wiped away. Largely destroyed is the city park where we both spent so many nights on Little League and softball fields.
But we are lucky. Jeff, who has lived in Dawson Springs since 1958 and graduated from its high school in 1976, made it across town and rode out the storm in a friend’s basement. Several others we know didn’t survive, and there are still many unaccounted for.
The stories of those who died are heartbreaking, from 2-month old infant Oaklynn Koon, who never had the chance to live a full life, to the elderly sisters – Marsha Hall, 72, and Carole Grisham, 80 – who many of us knew our entire lives. Scott graduated from high school with Jason Cummins, Hall’s son.
The town was already in mourning. Just a few weeks ago, an 18-year-old Dawson Springs boy – Logan McKnight – was killed in a car accident, and virtually the entire town attended his memorial service in the high school gym where he wore the Purple Panthers uniform as a star basketball player. The trauma of his loss was still so fresh. And now this.
The damage cannot be understood unless you see it in person. Walking around town in the aftermath, it did not even feel like a weather event occurred. It felt like a bomb went off. Houses, trees – everything had seemingly just exploded.
Tornadoes rip open windows into peoples’ lives, laying them bare for the world to see. You see clothes, dishes, toys and medicine bottles, and you wonder if the people who lost them have the resources to replace them. Intellectually, you know you are standing in what used to be someone’s driveway or front yard, but the landscape looks so different that your mind questions whether you are really in the same place.
You look at swaths of land that are now covered in debris, and your mind drifts to green grass, tall trees and the kids who once played ball there. Dogs running around. Neighbors mowing yards. Flowers blooming. You open and close your eyes hoping that perhaps this isn’t real – and that a blink can restore the past.
But it doesn’t. And you ask yourself – will this landscape ever look the same again? Will it ever again provide the sort of life we once enjoyed?
Most Americans are hearing about Dawson Springs for the first time. It has a proud history. At the turn of the 20th century, mineral water that came from its deep wells was thought to have healing properties, attracting tens of thousands of people annually from around the country. The Pittsburgh Pirates even trained there, including the legendary shortstop Honus Wagner, because of the mineral water.
Over time, the town transitioned from health resort to a coal mining town, an industry which sustained it for much of the 20th century. As the coal business has declined, efforts to attract new industries have been largely unsuccessful.
Today, though, Dawson Springs is another small “flyover country” village with deep roots but an uncertain future – one that is now in jeopardy because of the tornado that destroyed perhaps 75% of the houses, according to the mayor.
Dawson Springs’ very existence is in question as people who have lost everything now must decide where to go from here.
We wanted to share some of our thoughts about Dawson Springs, and to express the town’s gratitude for the attention and outpouring of support it has received. The politicians who represent it – from the President down to the governor and local officials – have been working in great cooperation. Major media outlets have portrayed the plight of the town lovingly and accurately, helping raise money and supplies to ease suffering.
We’ve both heard from people around the world who want to help, and on behalf of proud Dawsonians everywhere, we offer our sincerest appreciation for the outreach.
The next steps for Dawson Springs, Mayfield and several other small communities in the affected areas will revolve around housing. What kind of life can be put together in the short-, mid- and long-term for people who lost everything? For Dawson Springs, a town with a small tax base to begin with, what are the long term prospects if many residents drift away, choosing to restart their lives elsewhere? What of the people who lived hand-to-mouth to begin with? Who lacked insurance? Whose small business or job was wiped away?
Some of these answers aren’t immediately obvious. But for those of us whose character and values were shaped by this middle American town and her people, we hope that interest in what happens here continues beyond just the days and weeks’ worth of coverage that often accompany such disasters.
Dawson Springs was once known as a place of healing. Today, because of the outpouring of prayers, resources and effort, it is again. If you can spare a donation of money or blood, please do. The people of western Kentucky need your help today and for many years to come.
