Kentucky, tornado and severe weather
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The Jackson, Kentucky, weather service office recently cut overnight staff but meteorologists were called in to handle the deadly tornado outbreak.
Additionally, there was no evidence that tornado sirens in the area had been deactivated by the Trump administration's budget cuts — if there was, the people affected by the storm certainly would have noted that fact in interviews.
Tornadoes that swept through Kentucky, Missouri and Virginia killed more than two dozen people, destroyed homes and left thousands without power as residents began clearing widespread storm damage.
Gov. Andy Beshear praised the Trump administration’s response to a deadly tornado in his state, even as he worried about cuts at NWS.
Did alerts go out? What type of alerts did people receive? National Weather Service and others have said the Jackson office was staffed Friday night despite staffing shortages.
Amid storms that killed 27, the NWS office in Jackson, Kentucky, reportedly scrambled to cover overnight forecasts on Friday.
This number could increase as the National Weather Service surveys areas impacted by the severe storms that hit the state Friday.
According to NWS, the damage survey found two brief EF1 tornadoes occurred in the early morning hours of May 20. The first tornado impacted the north side of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It touched down at the Cape Splash Aquatic Center at 1:08 a.m., causing some damage to the facility.