Kentucky faces long road to recovery after deadly tornadoes: "By the time this gets back to where it was … I'm probably not going to be around"
An unprecedented swarm of tornadoes in December carved out a path of destruction 260 miles long through parts of Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee before bearing down on Kentucky.
The road to recovery is a long one for towns like Mayfield, Kentucky. Army Corps of Engineers emergency management chief George Minges, who directs debris removal, estimates there's about 2 million cubic yards of debris across the county.
That's on scale with the cleanup after 9/11.
It's unclear what the rebuilding of downtown Mayfield will look like — about 50% of the town's historic buildings were destroyed in the tornado.
"By the time this gets back to where it was … I'm probably not going to be around," resident Kevin Reed, 40, told CBS News.
Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is still reaching out to residents who are living in damaged homes.
"When you knock on the door you never know what you're going to find. We may have survivors who we're actually having to register for assistance with funerals," FEMA Disaster Survivor Assistance Program supervisor Brian Montgomery told CBS News.
From Dawson Springs to Bremen, lives and livelihoods were shattered.
"We actually shut down for a week and a half because we had tornado damage in the plant," TJ Massey, who builds cars at a plant in Bowling Green, told CBS News.
Nearly 200 vehicles are assembled in Bowling Green, home of the Corvette, every day.
"I just hope the community stays as engaged as they have since the beginning," Massey said.
FEMA says cleanup will last until at least March, and rebuilding along America's tornado interstate won't just take years, but likely generations.
