Homes and businesses hit hard by strong storms in Pike County

PIKE COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Heavy rain and strong winds swept through the mountains on Friday leaving thousands without power and many folks facing damage to their home or business. In Pike County, damage was seen throughout, but some of the hardest-hit areas were the Belfry and South Williamson communities.

“It hit this part of the county about ten after two, somewhere thereabouts,” said Pike County Emergency Management Director Nee Jackson. “It was not, like I said, it was a fast-moving storm, so it wasn’t something that stayed very long, but it was a lot of destruction in the time that it was here.”

Shingles and tin were ripped from roofs and trees fell across roads and homes due to straight-line winds that approached highway speeds.

“Some of these storms that were coming through were 60 to 80 mile an hour winds,” said Jackson.

Eric Smith, who lives in the nearby Aflex community of Pike County, is just one of the many folks affected by Friday’s storms.

“High winds just come all at one time and within two minutes it knocked this tree down into my trailer, man,” said Smith. “[My granddaughter] just had come through the back door and was standing there talking to me and said ‘the winds is blowing’ and the tree hit the trailer right here at the door.”

Smith is thankful his family was not hurt and said things could have been much worse for his seven-year-old granddaughter.

“Thank God she wasn’t hurt because if it fell this way, it would have come across her swimming pool, and she was in it, you know what I’m saying,” said Smith, “and I thank God for that. I can replace the house; I can’t replace her.”

Jackson also said if you are still without power, remain patient with the linemen working hard to identify and fix the source of the outage.

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