WEST LIBERTY It was a day that comes around only once every four years, but it was a day all 3,435 residents of West Liberty would gladly have turned away.

Feb. 29, Leap Year 2012, became much more than a quirky day when someone could get a drivers license on his or her fourth birthday.

It was a normal Friday until the bad weather reports started coming in. An EF-1 tornado was headed to town, and every second counted.

Morgan Countys civil defense sirens went off and people took shelter wherever they could. Within minutes, the tornado carved a line of destruction across this normally serene county. No lives were lost because of tornadoes that day in Kentucky, which was also hit in the western and south central parts of the state by EF-2 tornadoes.

Many in Big Blue crazy West Liberty had been looking forward to watching Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and the No. 1 Wildcats take on Georgia the next day at Rupp Arena.

Several instead found themselves doing the tedious work of cleaning up the mess the tornado left. That day of getting things back to normal wound up being the calm before a storm that made the tornado on Friday look like a baby storm.

At 5:47 p.m. March 2, a time that will go down in infamy in local history, West Liberty was pummeled by an EF-3 tornado. Gusts of 140 mph winds raced through town wreaking havoc by tearing roofs off of houses and flipping cars upside down. Some said it sounded like a freight train was ripping through their homes.

Former WOWK morning news anchor Brooke Baldwin showed a video of a funnel cloud hitting the town on her CNN show.

Around 7 p.m., a different tornado about 17 miles to the southeast pounded Salyersville. It was an even more powerful EF-3 tornado with 160 mph winds. There was devastating damage in a part of town called restaurant row along Mountain Parkway.

No lives were lost in Salyersville, but the tornado moved into Johnson County killing two before entering Mingo County, West Virginia, and fizzling out.

WSAZ chief meteorologist Tony Cavalier said, It would be uncommon to have tornados two days apart in the middle of Tornado Alley, so it would be astronomically uncommon away from there. To get one tornado is really rare. To get two in three days is exceptionally rare.

Many tornadoes ripped through the country that day, and no state was more devastated than Kentucky. Twenty-four lives were lost in the state, including four in West Liberty.

It was the worst tornado in the state since the 1974 Super Outbreak claimed 319 fatalities on April 3 and 4, when 148 tornadoes hit Ontario, Canada, and 13 states including southern, central and northern Kentucky.

A year before the West Liberty tornado, Kentucky was spared when the 2011 Super Outbreak, between April 25 and 28, took 324 lives and became the countrys worst tornado event on record. Three-hundred sixty-two tornadoes hit 21 states in the Midwest, Northeast and South with Mississippi and Alabama being most affected.

West Liberty and Henryville, Indiana pummeled that day by an even stronger EF-4 tornado were invaded by newspapers from around the country and network news crews in the following days and even weeks. The damage was devastating, but volunteer help from near and far made its way into town to help.

Feb. 29 was Chris Baileys last day living in Ashland, and last at WSAZ. It was the type of day a meteorologist never forgets.

The Morehead State University and Magoffin County High School graduate travelled to Salyersville before going to Lexington to start his new job as chief meteorologist at WKYT, where he formerly worked.

Thankfully, I got the opportunity to drive into Salyersville that night after it hit to make sure everybody was OK, Bailey said.

Being about the same distance from Huntington and Lexington, Bailey was a veteran at forecasting West Libertys weather.

Just looking back on it now it has even greater historical perspective, I mean five years later because, by far and away, its now become the standard bearer for every severe weather event in our region, Bailey said.

Cavalier said: That was a tornado of 500 or 1,000 years.

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5 years since West Liberty tornado hit - The Independent