As children, Taylor Shea West and Madison Morgan eagerly anticipated sitting on downtown streets to watch the annual Mayfield Christmas parade.
Small towns are known for their festive spirit with floats, high school bands, and of course, Santa. Now, college graduates, the two young women attended the 2021 parade on Saturday, Nov. 28, as they had since they were children. Morgan, who now works for WYMC radio, broadcast the parade while West watched.
“It was one of the best parades that I can remember,” West said.
West had just accepted a job as a reporter for the Mayfield Messenger newspaper and had begun writing stories about Christmas celebrations. She was proud of her first professional bylines that featured stories about the downtown churches worshipping together for Advent walks and stories spotlighting local businesses—the types of stories that small-town newspapers do.
The paper had been sent to the press and would have hit the street on Saturday, Dec. 11, on its normal production schedule. But on the evening of Dec. 10, a monster EF-4 tornado roared through Mayfield, cutting a swath through downtown, damaging the churches that West had written about for that week’s edition, chewing up the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory and damaging 300-plus houses. The unthinkable.
West, who had not even yet received business cards or her press pass, had already scheduled a weekend in Chicago for Dec. 10-12. When her phone started dinging late Friday, Dec. 10, with messages asking if she was OK, she didn’t fully comprehend what had happened in her hometown, and with spotty cell service, she had trouble connecting with friends and family back home.
Morgan, her best friend from childhood, had heard the dire warnings from the WPSD meteorologists and gathered her family, including her parents, grandmother, and four dogs, and evacuated from their house to take shelter in a closet at the radio station on Key Bottom Road. Morgan deemed it safer than staying at her house, which didn’t have a good place to shelter.
“And when Trent (Okerson, WPSD chief meteorologist) said, ‘Get a football helmet, this is going to get bad,’ I had never heard that before in my life,” Morgan said.
The tornado passed three miles from Morgan’s house.
On the Front Lines of Their Hometown
Morgan, 24, and West, 23, graduated from Murray State University during the pandemic. Morgan chose a major in television production while West majored in journalism. Neither one ever imagined that they would stay in their hometowns after graduation. And yet, here they are, thrust into the biggest news story in Kentucky for 2021 and the epicenter of national news coverage for two weeks in December.
As soon as West learned what had happened in her hometown, she began texting to check on friends and family. With cell signals down, the internet largely non-existent, and power out, West had trouble getting through to her sources, and yet she still managed to piece together information for the next edition. She filed her stories from the airport terminal.
Morgan ventured to the streets she knew by heart that night, and she suddenly felt lost. Street signs gone. Landmarks demolished. “As I walked downtown, you couldn’t really get through with bricks everywhere, and cars flipped over and on top of each other and glass and nails everywhere,” she recalled.
She began gathering information that she knew the radio audience would need that night and then went back out shortly after sunrise the next morning.
Once West finally arrived home after flight delays, she faced the same eerie scene that Morgan did. She ventured downtown and found that the newspaper office was heavily damaged, except for a newspaper rack out front that remained and stacks of newspapers on the counter that weren’t even disturbed when the roof blew off.
“It was post-apocalyptic,” West recalled.
And then the smell hit her. She initially thought that she was smelling her grandmother’s laundry but then realized it came from the remains of the candle factory.
During the next week, West found herself talking with residents about the tornado, reporting on relief efforts, and jostling for space on the front row when President Joe Biden came to town. She met NBC’s, Al Roker.
Since then, every day has been filled with reporting on the tornado. The Mayfield Messenger, once a daily newspaper, now publishes twice a week – Wednesday and Saturday.
People messaged West on Facebook about how to get a newspaper. “I guess I didn’t realize how important a newspaper was, even with being a journalism student,” she said. “But I never thought that I would have the appreciation for community reporting like I do now, and I never would have gotten that unless this happened.”
Like West, Morgan realized that local reporting matters as she gathered information for the radio.
“A lot of people have called, emailed, or texting and are like, ‘We never thought that radio was important. We didn’t have power. We didn’t have the internet for Facebook, and our data wasn’t loading right. And the only thing that we could get as far as towers was you guys,’” Morgan said. “And we weren’t really reporting stories. We were reporting like, ‘Hey, this is where you need to get this, or this is where you need to get that.’ Like all of that information. And people were very thankful.”
Morgan said the radio station regularly checks equipment to make sure that they can stay on-air in case of emergencies. That little preparation paid off.
“But you never expect all of these mediums to be so important,” Morgan said. “When they’re saying that they’re (media) dead, you have Facebook, so you’re fine; you have Twitter, so you’re fine; you have TV, so you’re fine,” she said. “And then, all of a sudden, your Facebook’s gone, your Twitter’s gone, and you have no outlet to plug your phone into.”
But there’s radio and newspapers—their two mediums.
“A lot of people are holding onto the paper right now,” West said. “Because all of their belongings and history are gone.”
She has shipped papers to people out of state who have requested their hometown paper as keepsakes.
“History is important,” Morgan said.
The radio station airs a program called 1430 Memory Lane. Several episodes have featured historians talking about the downtown and the courthouse. One of the stories focused on the courthouse being burned down by Confederates during the Civil War. And it was rebuilt.
“And it’s one of those things where you’re like, ‘OK, tragedies have happened right here, but from those tragedies, we’ve rebuilt,’” Morgan said.
Their Role in Rebuilding Their Hometown
Morgan and West realize the hometown they were so eager to leave is where they need to be for now as they tell the stories of hope and rebuilding.
In the weeks after the tornado, they’ve seen the community come together as they’ve talked with friends, neighbors, former teachers, and community leaders. They’ve talked with business owners who intend to rebuild. They’ve seen the generosity of strangers who have pulled into town with trailers and unloaded supplies, presents, and toys for children.
“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘You know, Mayfield was not the buildings that the people were in. It was the people,’” Morgan said. “The people are and always will be Mayfield. The buildings will change and have changed for years and years, and the buildings have continued to change. The businesses have gone in and out, but I know a lot of the businesses are going to rebuild.”
West has already reported on business owners who have relocated or plan to rebuild. She said she hates that she has to report on the damage, but she remains positive that better days are ahead for her community.
Morgan agrees.
“I think it’s just so important to note that like, while it may be a time of grief because we have lost so much, we are about to gain so much more than we could have,” Morgan said. “I mean, this town itself, we were struggling. We were a struggling town. We were trying to get local businesses, and one would pop up, and then it would go away. Another would pop up and then go away. While this is a horrible situation, I do think that there is a light to that darkness. There are opportunities that are going to grow from this. And I think they feel that this is really going to change for the better.”
