On November 1, 2021, Melisa Voges began her first day as the park manager for Pennyrile Forest State Park.
Following in the footsteps of folks like Pete Bowles and Bill Thielen, she was hoping for a smooth transition. One filled with Christmas parties, family reunions, small business conferences, and perhaps some guests looking for a greener and secretly serene getaway.
But around the midnight hour of December 10, 2021, busloads of local refugees came pouring into the property — as nearby Dawson Springs had been destroyed by a mile-wide, EF4 tornado.
Six weeks after taking the position, her job and her property went from hospitality to hospital.
A year later, she vividly remembers the evening.
Of course, one evening became nearly 10 months, as those displaced guests worked through FEMA and state appropriations to procure travel trailers, rental property or found outside family to join.
She said one unnamed family remains on the park’s property in a travel trailer, with her last tornado-stricken inhabitants leaving this past October.
In the in-between, Pennyrile Forest State Park became its own small city — one filled with a bit of normalcy.
The park and its staff, she added, embraced every emotion together. They prayed together. They cried together. They celebrated small victories together.
Many of the trailers in and around Dawson Springs have now had to be passed to eastern Kentucky families, who six months later experienced their own tragedy in a torrential flood that obliterated low-lying properties in 13 counties.
Voges said the training west Kentucky’s parks received following the tornadoes — including Kenlake State Resort Park in Marshall County and Lake Barkley State Resort Park in Trigg County — has had to be transferred that direction.
Certainly there were difficulties and challenges that came with this unplanned task, but Voges said the experience brought her and her staff together over these last few months.
Guests who lost reservations, she said, were more than understanding of the circumstances.
State parks, in general, have been at the forefront of emergency response in these last 36 months — spanning all the way back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gov. Andy Beshear and other local, regional and state dignitaries on both sides of the aisle have noted that the parks system remains in a critical need of new, flush funding for improvements.
And Voges said some repairs have already been made.
More than anything, however, Voges said she and her staff are more prepared for emergencies — should the need unfortunately arrive once again.
Spanning northern Christian County and southern Hopkins County, Pennyrile Forest State Park is more than 800 acres of forest and shallow wetlands, built in 1938 near an existing and crudely-dammed lake. A 24-room lodge and restaurant overlook this 56-acre non-motorized boating aquifer, too, and is joined with cottages, a campground, several multi-purpose trails and an 18-hole golf course.
