The corridor from Jericho to New Castle bore the brunt of a storm with an EF1 confirmed tornado that slammed into Henry County about 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2 with top winds estimated at 110 mph by the National Weather Service.

With power lines and utility poles down, the landscape took a direct hit as did houses, barns and businesses in the path of destruction from Jericho to New Castle.

In New Castle, emergency services staged at the New Castle Fire and Rescue firehouse while law enforcement and fire department personnel canvassed an area from Lockport and River Road to New Castle to clear blocked roadways in addition to search for occupants of damaged buildings.

No fatalities were reported from the storm.

Rep. Felicia Rabourn of the Kentucky 47th District House of Representatives surveyed the damage in the immediate aftermath with District 4 Henry County Magistrate Danny Shain , whose New Castle district sustained significant damage.

“We’ve seen businesses hit and people without power,” Rep. Rabourn conveyed during her survey of New Castle in the immediate aftermath of the storm. “No injuries. No life lost. I’d say we’re all very fortunate that God was watching over us, and we will rebuild.”

Rabourn further stated that she stopped to help a business owner remove the shop contents from the damaged building before the roof collapsed.

Rabourn also represents Trimble County, which sustained damage from an EF-2 tornado on March 14 in Milton and upriver from the town.

Shain also assessed the damage in the New Castle magisterial district from the tornado.

“A lot of downed power lines, a lot of downed trees and a lot of downed outbuildings,” Shain said. “The response by the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, local fire departments and the state police was immediate. They did an excellent job of monitoring traffic and responding to the needs of the residents. The utility crews were on site, too.”

On Wednesday, New Castle Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief Michael Ellis addressed the use of the firehouse as the Central Command Post for the emergency response effort, which included the Pleasureville and Campbellsburg fire departments in addition to law enforcement.

“In less than three hours, we had all the roads open and operable,” Ellis said.

As for the extensive property damage in and around the immediate New Castle area, Ellis said his department of 15 active members first responded to the most immediate needs of the area served by the department.

“We had some structures flattened, and we checked the houses next to the (Henry County) high school and had crews go clear South Property (road),” he said.

Prior to the storm arrival, New Castle residents scrambled for shelter as the impact neared shortly after 6 p.m.

“We actually opened up the New Castle Baptist Church for shelter in place on that part,” said Ellis.

Ellis estimated that 15 residents and five members of his department sheltered there.

“It’s always been a go-to place that was opened up in years past,” he said of the church.

New Castle Mayor Phoebe Thompson said Wednesday that she and her family, like other New Castle residents, responded to the storm based on direction provided through emergency services.

“The sirens went off,” she said. “The phones went off. We grabbed pets, kids and went to the basement.”

Once the worst of the storm threat was over, Mayor Thompson ventured into the city to assess the situation.

“After the rain stopped, everybody was checking on neighbors,” she said. “The fire department did an excellent job and so did the public works (Jody Bramblett and Vincent Bates). They kept the water running.”

Mayor Thompson also drove in and around New Castle.

“It was terrible the buildings it did take out,” she said of the damage in the vicinity. “But it could’ve been a lot worse.”

Much of the damage near New Castle city limits occurred on Eminence Road around the Henry County Public Schools campus, where the storm downed utility poles and virtually totaled the Bluegrass Dispatch trucking building and a residential accessory building that was unoccupied.

The emergency sparked much support regionally for Henry County officials to tackle the challenges that they faced in the storm aftermath. Judge /Exexuctive Scott Bates credited his county judge counterparts all the way to Gallatin County for their support in addition to county road departments and other county departments that offered everything from tractors and generators to bucket trucks.

“It makes you feel good that people care that much,” he said.

The downed utility poles blocked Eminence Road at one point Tuesday evening and the South Property power station sustained damage, but Shelby Energy and Kentucky Utilities crews were quick to respond.

“We were very blessed they came as quick as they did,” Bates said of the restoration crews. “They were already here as soon as it happened.”

Henry County Treasurer Amanda Ricketts added that the crews arrived in the immediate aftermath of the storm to start the work to restore power and utility poles.

“Their presence was already at the high school at 6:30 (p.m.),” she said.

Ricketts also provided an update of the power outages in the area Wednesday morning, which included 471 residents without power served by Shelby Energy Cooperative station on South Property Road.

The Shelby Energy Cooperative live outage map showed no remaining outages in Henry County by Wednesday night.

With power restoration efforts in full swing Wednesday, county officials under the direction of Henry County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Coordinator Amy Mahoney converged at county offices in the morning for the next step in the emergency response process.

“They’re going to do damage assessment, and then they’ll get back to me,” Mahoney said of the New Castle Fire and Rescue crew dispatched to conduct the assessment.

The damage assessment team got some preliminary help from three crews from Louisville, said Assistant Chief Ellis, plus a boost from Trimble County Emergency Management Services director Andrew Stark, who brought 10 years of experience to the scene, most recently with the EF2 tornado that struck Milton last month.

“I’m just giving them any experience I can to help,” said Stark.

New Castle Fire and Rescue Chief Wesley Benham said the crew would take photographs and enter data about the damage into the EMA system.

“I think it appears centrally located by the high school, Eminence Road and South Property Road behind the high school,” Chief Benham said of the damage assessment area for his crew, adding that area along Jackson Road was included.

Among Jackson Road residents whose property sustained significant damage — Tony Whaley, who said he lost six barns, including two hoop barns, during the storm.

“It blew three barns down at the top by my house, and it took the whole end of my shop,” Whaley said.

Whaley also noted the extent of damage to flatbed wagons and trailers on his property.

“It took the flatbeds off of the wagons and twisted them like pretzels,” he said.

Whaley, a State Farm Insurance Agent, remained at his office in Eminence while Local staff photographs were taken at his property.

“I’ll be working all day on claims,” he said.

In Jericho, the confirmed EF1 tornado heavily damaged the area around Keepers Seafood Restaurant, where residences next to and behind the restaurant (including a totally destroyed home on Whitaker Lane) suffered significant damage.

Bonnie Schlenker said she sheltered in the restroom at Dollar General Store while at work there when the tornado roared by the store on its path to cross Lake Jericho Road to Keepers.

“It was one-and-one-half minutes of roaring and the building shaking, lights going out,” she said, adding that she was “very, very, very thankful” to emerge unscathed from the harrowing experience and that a friend in La Grange, Tiffany Ullman, kept her updated about the storm as the tornado moved from Oldham County to Henry County.

One Jericho resident who emerged intact from the path of the tornado, Suzanne Schulte, sheltered in the laundry room of her Bates Lane residence.

“There was stuff falling on my head,” she said. “I threw a comfortable over my head, and I was praying.”

She said she knew to take shelter when she saw the front yard flag flapping in a circle and debris lifting from the ground before the sky went dark.

“It was scary,” she said. “I don’t ever want to go through that again.

“It just kept getting louder and louder.”

As in New Castle, the Lake Jericho Fire Department searched damaged buildings and residences in addition to providing damage assessment for the HCEMA.

While the number of residents displaced by the tornado and associated storm damage might have been limited, Henry County administration did open the 4-H Building at the Henry County Fairgrounds for temporary shelter use Tuesday night in the event any displaced residents near New Castle needed it. The Lake Jericho Fire Department fire house also served as a temporary shelter for Jericho residents impacted. County officials confirmed that one Jericho resident was rescued and transported for medical treatment.

On Saturday, the National Weather Service (NWS) confirmed an EF-1 tornado with winds up to 109 mph as it entered Henry County from Oldham County at Jericho.

The Henry County Management Agency encouraged county residents to bring photos and documents about storm damage sustained on their properties to the Henry County government plaza in New Castle for collection to submit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for potential natural disaster declaration. The total dollar damage estimate in Henry County from the storm is pending the ongoing assessments.

The county planned to coordinate right-of-way pickup of natural vegetation and tree debris by both county and state roads departments, in addition to dumpster placement for construction material debris at the fairgrounds (4 dumpsters) and in Jericho (two dumpsters) at the St. Estes and Lake Jericho Road corner.