'The grace of God': Kentucky couple was helping others when tornado destroyed their home

MAYFIELD, Ky. – Billy Patterson was already in his pajamas Friday night watching the weather reports on Channel 6 when it became clear that a huge tornado, one that had already been on the ground far too long and destroyed far too much, was bearing down on Mayfield. 

His wife, Barbara Patterson, 68, was on the other side of town – a little over an hour into a 12-hour shift taking care of an elderly couple for whom she works giving them their medicine, cooking their meals and keeping their house neat.

“Well, she can’t handle two people herself if it hits,” Billy Patterson thought, as he climbed out of his recliner, got dressed, jumped in his pickup and headed about 14 blocks away to where his wife’s employers live.

“He said something told him to go,” said Billy and Barbara Patterson’s son, Keith, who lives in the tiny community of Cuba, about 11 miles south of Mayfield. “We know what that was – the grace of God.”

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While Billy Patterson was on the southwest side of town helping his wife protect her patients, the tornado cut a scar through his northeast Mayfield neighborhood.

Some houses were almost completely flattened.

The home that the Patterson’s paid $25,000 for in 1985 and had lived in for 36 years, creating memories with their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, was left standing but likely beyond repair.

The floor in the front room was tilted at an unnatural angle.

Kentucky tornadoes' damage and death

The entire roof was missing, and on Monday as family members moved out furniture, food and other possessions, they could look up and see the clear blue sky in a couple of rooms where the drop ceilings and plasterboard had been blown away.

The old home on North 6th Street, not far from East Lee Street, sits in an area of Mayfield that could best be described as organized chaos on Monday, which was an upgrade to what it was a day or two earlier.

By Monday, cleanup crews were using bobcats and even heavier equipment to scrape away the debris that used to be lives and deposit it on the edge of the street so crews with dump trucks could haul it away.

Billy Patterson didn’t even know his house was destroyed until about 2 a.m. Saturday after he had helped his brother-in-law shore up his home and then heeded a call for volunteers to help move people out of a nursing home on the edge of his neighborhood.

“When I saw it, I said, ‘Lord, you gave it (the house) to me. You’re going to have to give me another one,’ ” Patterson recalled.

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Barbara Patterson didn’t see the house until daybreak that morning.

“I broke down,” she said.

Insurance too expensive

What’s heart-wrenching for the Patterson’s is they don’t have home-owners insurance. Billy said the insurance canceled his policy a few years ago, and he couldn’t pay the $4,000 annual premiums charged by another insurance agency.

Retired and 69, he said he often couldn’t pay for his insulin and other drugs to treat his diabetes and other infirmities people his age get if it wasn’t for someone in town who throws odd jobs to him from time to time.

Keith Patterson had taken time off from the Hobby Lobby in Paducah on Monday to help his folks. He’d probably take off Tuesday, too. “But I’m in retail. It’s hard to take off this time of year.”

One of his bosses had already brought him supplies and hugged him. “They’ve been great,” he said. Never the less, he’s worried about taking off too much time before Christmas.  

But that’s the least of his worries.

They need to find a home for his parents and preferably one in Graves County so they’re near the rest of the family.

And he’s making plans to strip the electrical wiring from the old home his parents bought when he was 12, and sell it to help his parents survive.

“There’s a lot of copper in this house,” he said.

Meanwhile, Billy Patterson is putting his trust in God and the federal government to get him and his wife through this. 

“They said (the Federal Emergency Management Administration) was going to be here in the neighborhoods, walking around and helping,” he said. “I’m praying I see them soon.”

Joseph Gerth is a columnist for the the Louisville Courier Journal, where this column first appeared. Follow him on Twitter: @Joe_Gerth