Tornado Update

As of 6:36 p.m., the death toll from the Evansville area tornado was up to 22, with the known injured up to 230. At the Ellis Park racetrack between Evansville and Henderson, there is a report that says about half of the track's grandstands had been destroyed, along with horse barns and housing units. There is also a report that I cannot confirm that at three thoroughbred race horses were killed at Ellis Park.

I have been in telephone contact with people in Evansville and Perry County, Indiana. One pastor had been to Eastbrook Mobile Home Park near Evansville: he reported that the devastation is hard to comprehend. Ruble is everywhere and police and rescue squads were in the process of digging through the debris in search of survivors and bodies.

The tornado—or tornados, no one is sure how many struck—also hit Warrick County, Indiana, near Boonville. I have been unable to make contact with the pastor of the UCC church in Boonville, but the media reports that teenage girl was also killed near Boonville and a woman who was eight months' pregnant, her husband and a young child died in the nearby town of Degonia Springs.

I sent an email earlier this afternoon to the members of the Cabinet of the Kentuckiana Association, of which I am president, suggesting that a special offering be taken at out upcoming Association meeting for the victims of these tornados.

There were no known tornados here in Louisville; however, there were reports of quarter to golf ball-sized hail close to where I live.

One of the concerns that I have heard several people express is that this tornado is far from normal. In this area we often experience tornados, but the season in which they strike is usually the spring. No one with whom I spoke remembers tornadoes striking in November. Nor is it normal for a tornado to strike in the early morning hours.

All of this is more fodder for reflection—when I find the time to reflect!