After being picked up by a tornado in Kentucky, US, and thrown 130 miles away in Indiana, a family photograph from the 1940s will be reunited with its owner.
Katie Posten, a 30-year-old tech professional from New Albany, Indiana, discovered an old black-and-white photograph clinging to the windscreen of her parked car on Saturday morning.
A woman in a striped sundress was photographed carrying a small boy in her lap. “Gertie Swatzell and JD Swatzell, 1942,” read a notation on the back.
Ms. Posten sent out a call for help on Twitter and Facebook, and by Sunday, she’d been contacted by Cole Swatzell, who said it belonged to his family in a small Kentucky town about 14 hours away.
The devastating tornadoes that ripped across six states on Friday night, killing at least 90 people, virtually leveled Dawson Springs, which has a population of around 2,600 people.
The strongest of the tornadoes ripped through communities and killed night shift workers at a candle factory and an Amazon warehouse, leaving a 223-mile (360-kilometer) path of damage, the longest ever recorded in the United States.
The tornadoes did not hit Ms Posten’s home, but they did pass near to where she lives across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.
“When I saw the date, I realized it was probably from a tornado,” she told the Associated Press. “How else is it going to be there?” says the narrator.
She said that one of the tens of thousands of individuals who shared her posts knew Mr Swatzell and had tagged him because they had the same surname. Later this week, she intends to return the photograph.
“It’s truly amazing,” she stated. “Given everything that’s happened, it’s definitely one of those things that makes you think about how valuable things are — memories, family heirlooms, and things like that.”
“It demonstrates the positive power of social media.” It was exciting to see how quickly individuals responded, looking up genealogical records and saying things like, “I know someone who knows someone and I’d like to help.”