MAYFIELD, Ky.—On the day before Thanksgiving, Mayfield Consumer Products in western Kentucky posted photos online showing smiling employees lining up at a buffet table ready to enjoy a special pre-holiday meal together in the factory canteen.
On Friday night, the candle-making plant where workers had celebrated two weeks earlier lay in ruins, flattened by a devastating tornado during a late shift as more than 100 employees toiled inside. The next morning, 40 of them had been rescued; many of the rest were missing.
