Seven children who lived on same street killed in Kentucky tornado

‘Every time I see this, and I hear about those kids, I think about mine. What if they were my kids?’

Fourteen people were killed within just a few blocks, and 11 people, including seven children, died on just a single street in Bowling Green, Kentucky when the tornado struck.

Moss Creek Avenue was hit hard when the ferocious storms hit the western part of the state on Friday night.

Entire families passed away, with two of those who died being infants. Melinda Allen-Ray hadn’t slept much since early on Saturday when tornado warnings prompted her to take her grandchildren into the bathroom, holding on to them as the house was torn apart by the storm. Then she heard the screams of her neighbours.

“I heard them — it traumatised me. I think about that each night when I go to sleep, when I do sleep,” she said. “I just think about all those babies.”

Many in Bowling Green, coming from countries like Bosnia, Myanmar, and Nigeria, have fled from violence, creating a diverse community in western Kentucky.

Kentucky tornado - latest: Seven children killed on a single street as more than 100 people remain missing

“We come from war, this reminds us, it touches the memory of that, where we’ve been and how we came here,” 46-year-old grandmother Ganimete Ademi said. She lost her uncle and nephew in the war in Kosovo, which she left in 1999.

“I turn my memory back to 22 years ago,” she said about the scenes of destruction in Bowling Green.

Ms Ademi said two Bosnian brothers lived in homes next to each other along with their families. Five people died from the two households – a woman, two children, and two infants.

Another family lost six people – three adults, a 16-year-old girl, a four-year-old boy, and another child. A grandmother, 77, was killed not far away. Another two people from the neighbourhood succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

“That’s hard to think about — you go to bed, and your entire family is gone the next day,” Bowling Green Police Officer Ronnie Ward said.

The department usually tells people to seek shelter in a bathtub and cover themselves with a mattress, but he said that’s unlikely to have helped because of the viciousness of this tornado. Houses were completely destroyed, with some being torn away from the ground, leaving a patch of earth.

Mr Ward said looking through the wreckage for survivors and remains is difficult work.

“So you go about that task of trying to get this work done, and then you come across a wagon,” he said, standing near a broken Radio Flyer wagon. “And you think, that’s associated with a child somewhere. And did that child live? Those thoughts, they overtake you, they overwhelm you.”

A Radio Flyer wagon lies among debris along Moss Creek Avenue Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, in Bowling Green (AP)

Some houses were completely destroyed, while others were left untouched.

“It’s almost hard to look at, because how did it miss that house but it got this house?” Mr Ward said.

A tree was hurled through the neighbourhood by the tornado, landing close to Ms Ademi’s home.

“This tree could have come in my house, and we’d all be gone too,” she said.

Ganimete Ademi surveys the debris from her daughter's house which was being built along Moss Creek Avenue in Bowling Green, Ky., Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021 (AP)

As the tornado was about to hit Benedict Awm’s house, it turned. He was under a blanket along with his wife, two-year-old son, and their infant child to shield themselves from the broken glass coming from the shattered windows. When his wife asked him if they were going to die, he said he didn’t know.

“It’s terrible, you can’t imagine, I thought we were dead,” he said.

Volunteers have come to Bowling Green for several days with trucks and tools. Mr Awm, who came to the US from Myanmar, a country devastated by war, said “sometimes it makes me want to cry, to see how people are willing to help me”.

Bosnian immigrant Ben Cerimovic came in his truck and trailer every day over the weekend. He knew the family that died in the town.

“The feelings I’m having right now I really can’t explain,” he said. Bowling Green has a substantial refugee resettlement programme to bring migrants to western Kentucky and there’s a tight-knit Bosnian community in the town. Mr Cerimovic said most of the immigrants came to the US to provide a better life for their kids, but now their home looks like a warzone.

Mr Cerimovic volunteered on Saturday and Sunday but spent Monday collecting his emotions.

“Every time I see this, and I hear about those kids, I think about mine,” he said. “What if they were my kids?”

The Associated Press contributed to this report