Photo from tornado-damaged home lands almost 130 miles away

When Katie Posten walked extracurricular Saturday greeting to her car parked successful her driveway, she saw thing that looked similar a enactment oregon receipt stuck to the windshield.

She grabbed it and saw it was a achromatic and achromatic photograph of a pistillate successful a striped sundress and headscarf holding a small lad successful her lap. On the back, written successful cursive, it said, “Gertie Swatzell & J.D. Swatzell 1942." A fewer hours later, Posten would observe that the photograph had made rather a travel - astir 130 miles (209 kilometers) connected the backmost of monstrous winds.

Posten had been tracking the tornadoes that deed the mediate of the U.S. Friday night, sidesplitting dozens of people. They came adjacent to wherever she lives successful New Albany, Indiana, crossed the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. So she figured it indispensable beryllium debris from someone's damaged home.

“Seeing the date, I realized that was apt from a location deed by a tornado. How other is it going to beryllium there?" Posten said successful a telephone interrogation Sunday morning. “It’s not a receipt. It’s well-kept photo."

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So, doing what immoderate 21st period idiosyncratic would do, she posted an representation of the photograph connected Facebook and Twitter and asked for assistance successful uncovering its owners. She said she was hoping idiosyncratic connected societal media would person a transportation to the photograph oregon stock it with idiosyncratic who had a connection.

Sure enough, that's what happened.

“A batch of radical shared it connected Facebook. Someone came crossed it who is friends with a antheral with the aforesaid past name, and they tagged him,” said Posten, 30, who works for a tech company.

That antheral was Cole Swatzell, who commented that the photograph belonged to household members successful Dawson Springs, Kentucky, astir 130 miles (209 kilometers) distant from New Albany, arsenic the crow flies, and 167 miles (269 kilometers) distant by car. Swatzell connected Sunday didn't respond to a Facebook connection seeking comment.

In Dawson Springs — a municipality of astir 2,700 radical 60 miles (97 kilometers) eastbound of Paducah — homes were leveled, trees were splintered and hunt and rescue teams continued to scour the assemblage for immoderate survivors. Dozens of radical crossed 5 states were killed.

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Posten plans to instrumentality the photograph to the Swatzell household sometime this week.

“It’s truly remarkable, decidedly 1 of those things, fixed each that has happened, that makes you see however invaluable things are — memories, household heirlooms, and those kinds of things,” Posten said. “It shows you the powerfulness of societal media for good. It was encouraging that instantly determination were tons of replies from people, looking up ancestry records, and saying ‘I cognize idiosyncratic who knows idiosyncratic and I’d similar to help.’”

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