In photos: How a Kentucky municipal golf course became a landfill for a tornado-ravaged community

December 23, 2021

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PRINCETON, Ky. — Hours after a tornado bulldozed through this city of just 6,200 people, Mayor Dakota Young made a request he never thought he would.

Could he set the community’s golf course on fire and build a landfill under it?

Nearly 100 homes had been destroyed during the Dec. 10 storm, including dozens in a subdivision abutting the Princeton Golf & Country Club.

The open land would be a convenient place to burn vegetation and dump demolition debris as the city attempts to quickly rebound from the destruction.

Young knew it was a wild pitch. But when he approached the golf course’s board of directors, each unanimously agreed.

“We wanted to make sure that we provided a very close proximity for our burn pits and for our landfill so we were able to expedite the recovery process as much as possible,” Young said at the site Sunday. “Obviously, with this right here, it’s literally tearing down homes and going into their backyards and burying them.”

More than a week after a monstrous tornado carved a 166-mile path through Western Kentucky, cities across the region are still figuring out what to do with hundreds of downed structures and scattered debris.

Young said the city’s emergency landfill at the golf course — which received an emergency permit Dec. 14 — could serve as an example of what other communities can do.

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“We want to get ourselves back on our feet as quickly as possible so we can help Dawson (Springs) and Mayfield and hopefully take some of our best practices that we learned here and be able to apply it to their situations as well,” he said.

Katelynn McDaniel, whose home was destroyed in the tornado, said it’s hard to watch construction workers dig up the golf course that touched her backyard. But she understands “it’s really the only option.”

“The past week has been really surreal for us,” she said as an insurance adjuster surveyed her property. “I mean, three days in it felt like we were doing it for six months. It’s really sad to see our home go, of course. … But we’re also very positive and trying to just look at the future of we get to rebuild on this land in a year or so.”

The landfill will eventually be covered and returned to a course, and homes will eventually pop up on cleared lots.

But in the interim, residents across Princeton are continuing to support others in need, reminding them things will work out.

On Monday evening, as fires with downed trees lit the sky, Young posted a photo to Facebook of downtown Princeton at sunset.

“No pictures of bonfires or landfills tonight,” he wrote. “Just a reminder of what we’re working for.”

How they survived: Stories from those who made it through the deadly Kentucky tornadoes

Reach reporter Bailey Loosemore at bloosemore@courier-journal.com, 502-582-4646 or on Twitter @bloosemore.