LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- An EF2 tornado was confirmed in Prospect from damage surveys done by the National Weather Service in Louisville. 

According to the NWS Louisville X page, the preliminary survey was upgraded to an EF2 with 120 miles-per-hour winds in the Beachland Beach area.

WDRB visited Shirley Avenue, right by the Ohio River and Beechland Park, in Prospect Thursday morning. It was the first time TV crews were able to see the full extend of the damage. Crews had been working to remove the large, tall trees scattered across the roads, leading into the neighborhood, blocking people from coming in.

One home had an entire tree branch lodged into the roof. Neighbors said the children inside of the impelled bedroom had just made it down to the floor below when it happened.

Linemen continued working through Thursday afternoon to try and get the area's power restored. Twisted trees and bushed, sprayed wood and insulation, and zapped electrical boxes were left surrounding them as they worked.

Carl Jennings' backyard was left shambles. The tornado also took his roof. Luckily, he was home alone when it happened.

Home damaged on Covered Bridge Road in Prospect, Ky 4.2.24

A viewer sent this picture of a home severely damaged from a suspected tornado that moved through Prospect, Kentucky on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. 

He said he was making dinner in the kitchen when the sirens went off. He watched the tornado hit Beechland Park, which is located right behind his backyard. Jennings said he tried to turn around and only made it to the third or fourth step of the basement before it was over.

"It was raining really, really hard. And all of a sudden, so it felt like a vacuum or something like that just got really quiet," Jennings said. "You know, being in the Marine Corp, I saw a lot, but nothing like that."

The home to the left of him has a tree on top of it, and the other home to the right, now has what's left of his shed.

"It was definitely scary and I'm glad everybody in the neighborhood was OK but it's gonna take us a while to get back to our homes being in living conditions," Jennings said. "It's one of those situations where you feel like well, 'that's not going to happen to me.' And it did happen to me. I've seen tornadoes on TV, you know, movies or whatever -- to actually see one, it's hard to explain the feeling."

Thursday afternoon you could also see where the wind attacked the grass.

"You think you have time the mornings are going off, but you really have no time. As soon as the alarms are going off, it was here. It was here," Melanie Gootee said.

Melanie Gootee also lives in the same neighborhood. She said her husband had just made it into the driveway, 10-minutes prior from when the tornado touched down.

They hid in the basement.

When they resurfaced, she said, they could barely see some of their neighbors homes. Immediately, they checked on one of their elderly neighbors, who ended up being trapped inside of his basement.

"My husband and a couple of the other younger guys in the neighborhood had ran over there. They grabbed some chainsaws and heard him and everybody ran over to help him and they got him out through the basement window. But he was unscathed," Gootee said.

Most families remain without power. Melanie's lights turned back on Thursday morning. Others in the neighborhood said they are just anxiously waiting to take a shower again.

"You're glad everybody is OK. But at the same time, the devastations just you can't imagine it till you go through it," Gootee said. "This is a great neighborhood here. People were out checking on each other even in the rain. Everybody ran out to help everybody and, you know, thankfully we had no injuries or anything and everybody survived unscathed. That's a blessing."

Tornadoes and strong winds rocked the Kentuckiana area Tuesday evening, leaving scattered sheds, furniture and other debris across the area.

The NWS Louisville team has been surveying multiple areas, confirming at least seven tornadoes so far.

The survey is continuing, according to NWS Louisville.

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