Editorial: One Year After the May 2025 Tornado

The strongest communities are not simply those that survive disasters. They are the ones willing to examine what happened afterward with honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Image by LucyCharlotte | Adobe Stock

On May 16, 2025, lives changed across Pulaski, Laurel, and Russell Counties in a matter of minutes. Families lost loved ones. Homes disappeared overnight. Entire communities were left trying to make sense of one of the deadliest tornado events in recent Kentucky history.

In the days that followed, citizens watched neighbors, first responders, volunteers, churches, nonprofits, dispatchers, utility crews, road departments, and emergency personnel work around the clock to stabilize communities and help families recover. For many across the region, the response reflected some of the very best qualities of our communities. 

But recovery is not measured solely by immediate response. 

After events of this magnitude, citizens have a legitimate interest in asking difficult but necessary questions:

Fast forward to December 2025

Seven months after the disaster, open records requests were submitted to Pulaski, Laurel, and Russell Counties seeking records related to the tornado response and recovery effort. The requests sought existing records only and were limited to materials agencies ordinarily maintain during emergency operations, including records commonly associated with disaster response and emergency-management activities, including improvement plans.

The responses revealed three very different approaches to transparency, operations, and records management.

There is not much else to say about Laurel County's response. They produced exactly what was expected from such a request.

As for Russell County, there were no clear instructions for submitting an open records request on the website. Therefore, they were submitted to the County Judge Executive and the Emergency Management Director's email provided on the website. The lack of publicly clear submission guidance and the absence of any acknowledgment created significant difficulty in determining whether the request had been properly received or processed.

Pulaski County 

The county’s initial response cited an inapplicable statute, failed to provide a definite production timeline, and indicated that a “summary” would be produced rather than the requested records themselves. The following production of records also included blank ICS templates, generalized preparedness materials, and unrelated administrative records intermixed with responsive documents, making it difficult to determine what records actually existed and what records may not have been produced. 

More significantly, the records Pulaski County did produce described a disaster response operation involving extensive multiagency coordination, FEMA interaction, National Guard liaison activity, debris management, public information operations, shelter coordination, and recovery planning.

The county’s own after-action materials acknowledged delayed EOC activation, staffing deficiencies, training gaps, and coordination problems during the response itself. The acknowledgement of these deficiencies heightened the importance of understanding what corrective measures or improvement planning followed.

Yet many of the records requested and commonly associated with a disaster operation of this scale either were not produced, not appropriately titled or labeled, appeared to be embedded with broader presentations, or were never clearly addressed.  That does not necessarily mean every requested record existed or was intentionally withheld. It just means the response was incomplete. 

But it does raise fundamental questions regarding the county’s open records process:

Who the actual custodian of records is, if not the County Judge Executive (indicated on the official form). We have seen unofficial communication that his executive staff is the receiver of the open records. 

The records request made in December 2025 regarding the tornado were addressed to the Judge Executive, who did not respond or acknowledge the request. Instead, the initial response was received by the County Emergency Management Director. That initial response was an incredibly inaccurate response. However, after a remedy was requested, some of the OEM records were produced, but other records from 911, and fiscal court and meeting documents were disregarded. The question was specifically asked during communication if additional requests needed to be made to other custodians. The interpretation of that conversation was no, however that remains unclear in light of recent ORR discussions. 

The bottom line is that while the Pulaski County ORR form is compliant with the Attorney General's guide, there are areas lacking. For instance, the same guidance says the following, "in addition to posting the rules and regulations in a prominent location, each public agency must publish its rules and regulations on its website." The Open Records Policy is buried on the website within the ADMIN CODE in Chapter 11 (p. 137). Between the policy and the official form, it appears that the County Judge Executive himself is the records custodian for all county agencies - although there appear to be exceptions for the Sheriff's Office and the Pulaski County Detention Center. Even at that, a recent open records request to the jail indicated that some financial records for the jail are in the custody and control of the Pulaski County treasurer or the auditor. We recommend reaching out for clarity before submitting an open records request for the jail. 

A Few Observations of Improvement 

To be fair, the records review and subsequent public announcements do indicate that Pulaski County has recognized at least some of the vulnerabilities exposed during the May 16, 2025, tornado. Which was a second reason for the December 2025 open records request, preparedness and response research being the first.

Here is a list of announcements we have noticed lately.

Considering that public messaging is at times fragmented across social media posts, community announcements, and other unofficially centralized channels, we surely could have missed additional announcements, this list is not intended to be exhaustive.

1. The latest announcement of the "Printed Storm Shelter Initiative," released on May 16, 2026. We can verify that the following statement is a fact:

"Preliminary county planning data indicates that thousands of Pulaski County residents reside in mobile and manufactured homes, structures widely recognized as among the most vulnerable during severe weather, straight line wind and tornado events."

From the records reviewed, similar concerns were already being discussed internally in county recovery and congressional briefing materials, which referenced an estimated 7,000 mobile or manufactured homes in Pulaski County and explored concepts involving countywide shelter placement and warning improvements.

2. The announcement of the Nancy Community Center, May 14, 2026, which is planned to double as a storm shelter.

This suggests county leadership recognizes the need for expanded public sheltering capability in vulnerable areas.

3. The NWS "StormReady Certification" announced on May 12/13, 2026.

4. The March 4, 2026 announcement of the new RAVE weather notification system. 

3 & 4 also indicate that efforts have been made to improve severe weather communications, warning dissemination, and preparedness coordination.

Those efforts deserve acknowledgment. Communities should want local government learning from disasters and taking steps to improve and we fully support that. However, it is noted that public feedback surrounding the March deployment of the RAVE Smart911 system demonstrates that announcing a preparedness initiative and achieving public confidence in that initiative are not necessarily the same thing. Numerous residents publicly reported confusion, inconsistent alerts, delayed notifications, or failure to receive warnings during severe weather events in March 2026.

The timing of these announcements naturally raises public questions regarding when these initiatives were developed, documented, and implemented.

If those initiatives were already being planned, coordinated, or developed during the time period covered by the records request, it is reasonable for citizens to ask whether related planning records, discussions, proposals, grant materials, or implementation documentation should have been identified in the county’s records production. 

Another issue we flagged was the lack of documentation for the Local Disaster and Emergency Services Organization. KRS 39B.050(1) states the following:

"Each local emergency management director shall establish and maintain a local disaster and emergency services organization in accordance with a city or county or city/county or joint counties emergency operations plan required pursuant to KRS Chapters 39A to 39F. The local disaster and emergency services organization shall be comprised of the following members and participants:" Read here for complete list. 

The Disaster or Emergency Services Stakeholder Meeting Records were requested in the December 2025 open records request but were not addressed in the response. 

These issues become increasingly important as local officials publicly discuss emergency preparedness initiatives one year after the tornado, during an active local election season. 

Naturally, citizens may ask a reasonable question:

If improvement initiatives, corrective measures, or preparedness plans and projects were being discussed or developed, where were those records when improvement plans and corrective-action documentation were specifically requested?

That question is not an attack on first responders, emergency personnel, or the many individuals who worked tirelessly during and after the storm. Many performed extraordinary work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Nor is this an allegation that every missing or unproduced record was intentionally concealed.

Rather, this is about whether the public received a transparent and intelligible accounting of how local government documented, evaluated, and learned from one of the worst disasters this region has experienced in decades.

Additionally, we are aware of a recent open records request that would potentially shed light on some of the questions that were raised during the review of the open records request discussed here. However, the County's response to that May 1st open records request is that it will be the day after the election when those records will be fulfilled. Several separate requests were filed, a few that seem easily filled within less than an hour, while others would take coordination, but we are left why it will take 13 business days. 

Transparency after disaster matters because after-action documentation serves an important public function. These records are not merely bureaucratic paperwork. They are how agencies identify operational weaknesses, document lessons learned, track corrective actions, improve preparedness, and demonstrate institutional learning before the next emergency occurs.

At the end of the day, this editorial is not about scoring political points or pretending that emergency management is simple.

Disasters are chaotic. Decisions are made under pressure. Good people can make mistakes while still trying to do the right thing for their communities.

But accountability does not disappear simply because intentions were good.

The citizens of Pulaski County — and every community affected by the May 16, 2025 tornado — deserve transparency that extends beyond press releases, slogans, certifications, and election-season announcements. They deserve honest communication about:

• what worked,

• what failed,

• what was learned,

• and what is actually being done to improve before the next disaster arrives.

That requires documentation, follow-through, measurable action, and a willingness to answer difficult questions even when those questions are uncomfortable.

SPA will continue asking those questions.

Not because criticism is the goal, but because informed citizens are essential to accountable government. Local government decisions affect emergency response, infrastructure, preparedness, public spending, and ultimately public safety. Those issues matter every year — not just during election cycles and not only after tragedy forces attention onto them.

Citizens should stay engaged, read public records, attend meetings, ask questions, and verify claims for themselves whenever possible. Public trust is strengthened when transparency is proactive rather than reactive, and when promises made to the community are matched by clear action and honest communication.

If meaningful improvements are being made, the public should be able to see them, understand them, and follow their progress over time. That is not hostility toward government. That is how accountability is supposed to work.

The records shared and reviewed for this editorial were obtained as part of an ongoing regional public-interest and research initiative examining disaster-response transparency, emergency-management communication, and post-disaster accountability following the May 16, 2025, tornado outbreak. As a general matter, nonexempt public records obtained through Kentucky’s Open Records Act are subject to public dissemination and discussion. The purpose of the requests was to gather and analyze disaster-response records, not to test the open records process itself. No formal appeal was submitted to the Kentucky Attorney General as of the publication date; however, differences in responsiveness, transparency, and procedural handling became part of the comparative review. If you would like more information regarding the records obtained, please email us at info@somerset-pulaski-advocate.org