LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Under a patched-up 6-foot hole in the roof, people in the devastated town of Henryville, Ind., gathered Sunday at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church to worship and catch up on news of the devastating tornado by word of mouth, not with cellphones or e-mail.
At least 39 people were killed in the storm system that struck Friday, and rescuers were going door-to-door in rural areas to rule out more victims. Some of the worst damage stretched on either side of the Ohio River between Indiana and Kentucky.
The storms thrashed the conveniences of modern life, too: Cellphone signals were hard to find, Internet was out, and electricity was indefinitely interrupted. People went back to basics or got creative to learn about their loved ones and begin rebuilding.
“It’s horrible. It’s things you take for granted that aren’t there anymore,” said Jack Cleveland, 50, a Census Bureau worker.
Randy Mattingly, a 24-year-old mechanic, said he and his neighbors passed on information by word of mouth to make sure people were OK: “It was like, ‘Hey, did you talk to this guy?’ ” He said state police set up two gathering points for adults and children, at the church and at a nearby community center.
At Sunday’s Mass, the Rev. Steve Schaftlein turned the church into an information exchange, asking the 100 or so in attendance to stand up and share information. Volunteers stood to share tips about functioning in what is in many ways a tech-free zone.
Lisa Smith, who has been Henryville’s postmaster for six weeks, told people that they could pick up their mail in Scottsburg, about 10 miles north. She said she was most worried about people needing medication, and she had been shaking boxes to see whether they had pills inside with hopes of connecting them with their recipients.
A local insurance agent, Lyn Murphy-Carter, shared another story. The founder of her agency, 84-year-old Tom Murphy, had told her always to keep paper records. That proved valuable without access to computers. She collected about 1,000 claims Saturday alone and was gathering handwritten claims from policyholders at church.
Although it could be days before power and cell service are fully restored, crews were making progress Sunday. In Indiana, about 2,800 homes were without power, down from 8,000. But in some hard-hit areas, such as Henryville, a substation and transmission lines need to be rebuilt, and that could take up to a week.
Almost 19,000 customers were without power in Kentucky, according to the state’s Public Service Commission.
