After a series of deadly tornadoes ravaged through the South and Midwest last week, the death toll has risen to 77. Kentucky Authorities said the body of a 13-year-old girl was recovered Thursday morning after she went missing during the storm.
According to the Lexington Herald Reader, Nyssa Brown, 13, was the last person unaccounted for in Bowling Green, Ky, after 244 people were deemed missing. The tornado destroyed multiple states, including Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
Five days after the deadly storms, Ronnie Ward, a spokesman for the Bowling Green Police Department, said that searchers found Brown after expanding their search near Moss Creek and Moss View in Bowling Green.
“It’s gut-wrenching. It’s hard to take,” said Ward. “I didn’t even know Nyssa. I see the picture of her. Sweet, little girl. She goes to school right there close by. And she had family, and she’s a human being, and we all are. So it’s just really hard.”
“Everybody, everyone who had the ability to search,” Ward said. “They’ve come here and helped and helped in some capacity.”
“What makes this even more tragic is that Nyssa was the final member of her family to be found,” the department said.
Brown and six of her family members died after the tornado destroyed their home, totaling the cities population to 67,000. Among those killed from the Brown family were Nyssa’s siblings: Nariah Cayshelle, 16, Nolynn, 8, and Nyles, 4, and her grandmother, Victoria Smith, 64, and her parents, Steven Brown, 35, and Rachel Brown, 36, CNN reported.
The Brown family were considered seven of Warren County’s 17 storm-related fatalities, WDRB reported.
The family relocated to Bowling Green after Steven Brown accepted a job offer two years ago, according to Rachael Brown’s aunt, Dornicho Jackson McGee.
“They were very family-oriented. They loved their family. They loved their kids,” McGee told CNN.
In a news conference, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said that he feared more than 100 people were dead, marking the disaster as one of the deadliest outbreaks in state history.
“I’m now certain that number is north of 70, and it may exceed 100 before the day is over,” he said in a news conference early Saturday. He called the devastation “indescribable.”
President Biden declared an emergency for Kentucky and other affected areas as they are expected to receive federal funds to assist those in need, USA Today reported.
“We’re going to get through this together,” Biden said Saturday. “The federal government is not going to walk away. This is one of those times when we aren’t Democrats or Republicans. We’re all Americans.”
