As a devastating and deadly long-track tornado tore through Kentucky on Friday, the record-breaking storm picked up debris large and small and tossed it into the atmosphere like toys.
The debris included a treasured family photo, which was sucked up into the storm before fluttering down nearly 130 miles away from the now-destroyed city of Dawson Springs, Ky., and onto the car of Katie Posten.
"It almost looked like someone left a note on my car, and then I peeled it off and realized, 'Oh, this is a picture from a family,'" Posten, a resident of New Albany, Ind., told AccuWeather national reporter Bill Wadell. "I mean instantly, it was like this has to be from a home that was hit last night."
The photo, a black-and-white picture of a woman in a striped dress sitting with a little boy in her lap, came with two clues: a note scrawled on the back with two names and a date saying 1942.
 |
Posten immediately took a picture of the photo and shared it on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Social media sleuths tracked down the family that the photograph belonged to in less than three hours.
Someone online with the profile name Cole Swatzell commented below Posten's post that the photograph belonged to members of his family in Dawson Springs.
Posten plans to deliver the photograph personally and encourages others in the area to scour their yards for family heirlooms that could have been lifted by the monster tornado's ferocious winds.
"If you find something, post it and try and get it back to the family. You never know what is going to happen," she said.
