SHELBYVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A church in Shelbyville is counting its blessings after a wind gust ripped off one of its walls.
It happened Sunday morning at Shelbyville Wesleyan Church, in an area that saw 40 to 50 mile per hour wind gusts.
While people were inside getting ready for service, the outer church wall came tumbling down. Beth Kraft was rehearsing songs when she heard it.
"We heard this huge like boom, it kind of sounded like a tree falling," she said. "The was like this huge cloud of stuff like dust and debris and stuff,"
All that's left is a pile of bricks and debris. The pastor wasn't expecting to get the call while preparing for his service.
"When I saw the scope and magnitude of it, I was overwhelmed," Pastor Doug Kraft said.
The pastor noticed some cracks in the wall earlier in the week and had an inspector check things out, but no one expected what would happen just days later.
"I had no idea it was going to fall today," Kraft said. "I'm pretty confident it was the heavy winds this morning that really what really took it down."
An inspector suggested to block off the area just to be safe, so Kraft put out orange cones outside that entrance.
"Senior citizens that are less mobile, that's the entrance that they use, so it could have really been a terrible tragedy," Kraft said.
Without a safe place to worship, the church will be looking for alternatives. Something the pastor hopes will be a blessing in disguise.
"Hopefully some good can come of this, in that we can impact people's lives in the community in this time when we are having to go outside of the walls to have church," Kraft said.
The church is waiting for insurance inspectors to come see the damage, then clean up and re-building will begin.
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