MAYFIELD, Ky. (NewsNation Now) — A Kentucky man said he had “never been more scared” than when a tornado outbreak tore through his town, killing at least eight people at a nearby candle factory.

“My sister-in-law came over because she knew we had a basement and when I opened that door to let her in it was right before the tornado came through and the sound and the howling and the feeling of that tornado coming through Mayfield was something that was the scariest moment of my life,” Steve Elder said.

Elder said they waited in the basement for the storm to pass.

“We didn’t know how long it would take,” Elder said, “what had happened.”

His family was safe, immediate neighbors appeared unharmed and home had been spared. But the rest of the community was not so lucky.

“I immediately got in my truck and went to the court square and realized and just wept that the courthouse had been cut in half,” Elder said “The banks were destroyed. The 200-year-old churches were flattened. I thought this … I can only imagine the devastation in the rest of the community.”

About a mile from his home, a tornado wiped out a candle factory. Eight people remain missing.

“We as a community realized real quick that this this destroyed, you know, brick buildings and solid foundation buildings,” Elder said. “There was nothing that the path of the storm, you know, path … if it went through, it devastated you. So we knew then that the loss of life would probably be high.”

Elder is the director of Mayfield Community Foundation. The organization previously raised money to help those impacted by the pandemic. Now, they will be working to help storm victims.

“This is terrible, but the people of Western Kentucky are fantastic, and we will rebuild,” Elder said.