On the evening of Dec. 10, 2021, an EF-4 tornado struck the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center at Princeton (UKREC), leaving behind only remnants of a facility that had been an essential contributor to Kentucky's agricultural research. Decades of infrastructure and millions of dollars in equipment were destroyed overnight, reducing one of the state’s key agricultural assets to rubble.   

A refurbished red Cub tractor, believed to have been used during the early days on the experimental farm, had previously stood as a centerpiece in the lobby of the Forage Center building. It survived, but the lobby had disappeared around it. Lab and office spaces had been almost entirely dismantled. An entire tobacco barn had been ripped from its foundation and dragged hundreds of feet across the property. A small fleet of pick-up trucks had been lifted and tossed hundreds of yards across a road and onto a nearby hillside, with some coming to rest against trees on the adjacent property.   

Under the leadership of director Carrie Knott, the faculty and staff, many of whom had suffered personal losses from the tornado as well, engaged in a massive cleanup effort to pick up the pieces. Local farmers and those from neighboring counties stepped up immediately to reach out with offers of water and hay to care for the cattle, and they volunteered teams of their own workers to help the UK facility clear roads and clean up debris. The community arrived and took action to fill the center’s immediate needs without even being asked, Knott said.  

The Princeton staff quickly established temporary facilities, working to maintain as much of the center’s field research activities as possible while also launching the rebuilding process for the facility’s infrastructure. Experts picked through the rubble to salvage as much of the center’s crucial research as possible. Knott estimated that the team managed to recover roughly 75 percent of the center’s crucial samples and research data; the rest was unable to be salvaged.  

Although some of the center’s annual events were postponed or canceled in 2022, the center provided resources and support to local farmers and residents affected by the tornado, including hosting a tornado recovery workshop.