A Kentucky restaurant leveled in last week’s deadly tornadoes had belonged to three generations of the same family for 75 years, the heartbroken owner said Monday.
“My grandparents started it,” Suzanne Flint told CNN as she stood in front of the rubble that had for decades been Carr’s Barn in Mayfield, ground zero for the devastation caused by Friday’s twisters.
“My whole family’s worked there at some time or another — my mother, my brother and my grandparents, my aunt,” she said.
“Most of them are gone, so [the restaurant] was really the only memories we had left of them.
“It’s just rubble now. There’s nothing left,” she said.
Mayfield was the epicenter of the worst damage from the series of tornadoes that hit several states. Throughout Kentucky, at least 64 people have been confirmed dead, with more than 100 still missing.
While none of Flint’s immediate family was among the dead, Suzanne and her husband, Wayne, said they are overwhelmed by the suffering around them, including among members of their own staff.
“We had a boy who used to work for me … He lost his whole house, and he’s got six kids. What’s he going to do?” Wayne Flint asked Fox Weather.
Mayfield was the epicenter of the worst damage from the series of tornadoes that hit several states. Tannen Maury/EPA“And there’s thousands of them like that,” he said of local families.
He recalled to CNN how he’d been at the relative safety of a basketball game 20 minutes away Friday night when he heard that the tornado was destined to hit his hometown.
“I had a bright idea to go back home … was that a mistake,” he said, recalling the treacherous journey during the historic storm.
Wayne and Suzanne Flint said they are overwhelmed by the suffering around them, including among members of their own staff. Fox Weather“I watched an 18-wheeler flip over in front of me, and my truck picked up off the ground a couple of times,” Wayne said.
Once he and his wife got to visit where their restaurant had been, the area “was like a war zone,” he told Fox Weather.
“I’ve been here my whole life, and I didn’t know where anything was,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Carr’s Barn has been owned by the same family for 75 years. FacebookSuzanne Flint said she only had “minimal” insurance for the restaurant and had already been suffering financially because of a slowdown of business during the pandemic.
Still, her husband vowed to “try and get this restaurant back up” to “give people hope” in the crushed community.
“I’ll start building as soon as the city lets me. I’m ready to do it,” he told CNN. “People need to see hope.”
