TAYLOR COUNTY, Ky. (WDRB) -- Eleven months after deadly tornadoes ripped through Kentucky, Taylor County families are working to rebuild.
Driving up Sanders Road in Saloma, a small city just north of Campbellsville, the land looks night and day compared to when disaster first struck.
Fields scattered with debris from about a dozen homes that were hit hard by the storms are now covered in wheat. Along the road, homes that were ripped off their foundations are being rebuilt.
The Wooldridge family has called the area home their whole lives. And they say a tornado wasn't going to change that.
Wooldridge family smiles alongside new gate, marked with a 'W', being built by their new home in Taylor County.
WDRB News first met Mitchell in the early hours of December 11, 2021. It was still dark out and only about an hour after a tornado had destroyed his home.
WDRB's Grace Hayba and photojournalist Stuart Hammer found Mitchell, his family, and over a dozen of their neighbors huddled together around a fireplace. They were passing around towels to dry off while rain continued pour down and winds howled outside.
The Wooldridge's neighbor's home was the only one on the street that wasn't hit.
DESTRUCTION IN TAYLOR COUNTY KY | This is just some of the damage we are seeing. Multiple homes leveled, and debris all over. Neighbors tell me if they are just thankful to be alive. pic.twitter.com/MVVMyhrZh8
— Grace Hayba (@GraceHayba) December 11, 2021
"The Code Red alert woke us up," Mitchell said. "It wasn't raining or anything, and you think, 'Oh, it's not a big deal.' And then you hear the loud winds."
At the time, Mitchell said 'The Lord took care of us,' when describing how he and his family survived by the grace of God. Mitchell said he took shelter in the basement with his family and had rushed downstairs to meet them just seconds before the winds blew away their home.
The family was trapped in the basement after a wall collapsed on top of Mitchell.
"We just tried to hunker down under anything we could to stay dry, waiting for somebody to come," he said. "Thank God we know a lot of people in this town."
Mitchell Wooldridge stands above his destroyed home after the deadly December 2021 tornadoes. He and his family were trapped in their basement until neighbors dug them out.
Eventually their neighbors came to the rescue and pulled the family to safety. The group then helped rescue others trapped in basements of homes nearby.
The Wooldridges lost nearly all their personal belongings in the storm. One of their dogs and some of their livestock also were killed.
Even though they were starting from scratch, Mitchell said the family started rebuilding a new home on the same plot of land fairly quickly.
Wooldridge family loses everything in December 2021 tornadoes.
"We went from no house to roughly two weeks later sitting down with blueprints to go over when we were gonna start the next one. The first of January we were digging a basement," he said.
The family said they couldn't have rebuilt without tremendous love and support from the community.
"I can’t say enough about people who have shown up to be the hands and feet of Christ," said Mitchell's wife Courtney. "It’s just been phenomenal to watch people love on us and you just know God’s still moving and he’s still working. We have said from the get-go that Campbellsville has shown what you do for people who are in crisis.”
Community members help Wooldridge family raise first wall of their new home. The family lost their home in the deadly December 2021 tornadoes.
When starting to build the walls, Mitchell said they put a post on Facebook asking for help and over 50 people showed up. He said they were able to put up nearly every wall in the house in just one day.
When designing how things would look, Courtney said she wanted the space "to feel like home" while also being better suited to the needs of their growing family.
When the tornadoes hit, Mitchell and Courtney were in the process of adopting their third child. The pair put things on home for a while, but were able to proceed with adopting a three-year-old boy after finding temporary housing through family friends.
Wooldridge family builds new home in Taylor County with prayer, love and help from community.
Rowan, affectionately nicknamed 'Row,' turned four a few weeks after joining his new family.
“It has been kind of neat to have a four-year-old again," said Courtney. "It’s different because we had both of the girls as newborns and so we’ve jumped into three-year-old boy world. And oh my it’s different!”
The couple also adopted their oldest daughter Emery, 11, shortly after she was born. Courtney then gave birth to their middle child, Annslee, 10, less than a year later.
"We used to have a picture of the two of us at a prom and we knew then, as those teenagers, that this is what God wanted us to do," Courtney said when reflecting on their decision to adopt.
Rowan, 4, and Emery, 11, play in dirt mound amid new home construction.
Mitchell said despite the challenges of navigating a new build and starting over, Rowan has acclimated almost seamlessly to their family.
"I would say within two weeks, it was honestly like he’d always been with us. It was amazing the way the girls just took off and played with him and it was just normal," the father said.
"It’s amazing the provision that God provided for that," added Courtney.
In the new home, each kid will have their own room. Rowan will be just a short walk away from mom and dad. His windows look out over the back deck, which his father says is his 'favorite part of the house.'
The girls picked rooms downstairs. The parents say being in the basement makes the girls feel safer after enduring such a traumatizing night nearly a year ago.
The girls' rooms are also just feet away from the family's new tornado safe room.
Wooldridge family said a new tornado safe room will provide comfort in the event of an emergency. Inside will be beds, food and other items to stay warm and comfortable.
"We just knew we wanted one. We put ours in the basement behind the front porch," said Mitchell. "They poured all the walls at one time, so it is all one continuous concrete pour.”
Mitchell said they also drilled rebar into the walls and lapped it over the top of the room for extra protection. When building the space, he said he told everybody he wanted it strong enough so that you could park a truck on top of it.
Courtney stated the thinks some may see the design as "overkill," but said the family "just needed some peace."
When their home was destroyed last year, the family said their belongings were found as far away as Versailles and Mason County.
“Our wedding album was a professionally matted book with three to four pictures per page. It was a picture that was ripped out of that of me and my brother on my wedding day and it honestly looked like you had dropped it out of your pocket. It wasn’t ripped, it wasn’t water spotted, it was a perfect picture," said Mitchell. “It’s crazy to me that it ripped it out of that book, flew it 90 miles by road, and it landed in somebody’s backyard.”
As the couple plans to move into their new home soon, one of the most challenging things is knowing things of sentimental value were lost forever.
"We didn’t have a whole lot of what people would call 'nice' things. But everything we had was attached to a memory," said Mitchell.
Courtney reminisced on a time she found herself searching for a clock that had belonged to Mitchell's grandfather just a few days earlier. In each home she and her husband had lived in since getting married, it had always hung right next to the door.
Mitchell Wooldridge stands by construction equipment in the front yard of his new home in early November 2022.
“That kind of stuff, I don’t know, will we ever stop looking for Papaw’s clock? I doubt it," said Courtney. “We had things that had memories attached to them but even when all of your worldly possessions are gone, we still have the memories.”
One thing the family is especially looking to having again is a kitchen table.
“We try to sit down at the kitchen table and have supper at night and try to talk about everybody’s day and stay in touch and so the table was important," said Mitchell.
"And it will be again," added Courtney.
The family knows healing on the inside will take time but says God will help them get through it all.
“We laid in bed at the rental house and we’re just like, ‘You ever think you’re going to wake up from this dream?'" said Mitchell. "And we are going to wake up one day and it’s going to be okay, it’s just going to be a different location."
The family plans to be moved into their new home in time for Thanksgiving.
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