ATLANTA UPDATE
Storms damage Farmington area, blow over SUV
By Associated Press | Athens Banner-Herald | Story updated at 11:39 am on 2/19/2009
An apparent tornado touched down in South Oconee County Wednesday evening, knocking down trees, overturning a vehicle along U.S. Highway 441 and tearing through the Georgia Nature Center, the National Weather Service said.
The storm, which hit at about 7 p.m., caused significant damage from Tappan Spur Road in Farmington east to Colham Ferry Road, the weather service said.
The highway was closed for a time because of downed electric lines and trees, while several homes had roof damage, and one mobile home was moved from its foundation, the Weather Service said.
A sport utility vehicle on U.S. 441 was pushed by wind and overturned, and the driver suffered a minor cut, Oconee County Fire Chief Bruce Thaxton said this morning.
The storm seemed to cause the worst damage at the Georgia Nature Center in Farmington, said nature center Director Jeff Gold.
Hundreds of trees were knocked down, an outdoor exhibition area was damaged and one of the nature center’s two solar energy arrays was destroyed, he said.
Gold said weather service experts planned to visit the area today to assess the damage and determine if the storm was, in fact, a tornado.
However, Gold had no doubt.
“It had to be, just from the nature of the ways trees were twisted instead of blown over,” he said.
Worse weather hit farther south in Sparta, where one person was killed and three people were injured by storms that swept across Georgia.
The death occurred in the Hancock County seat of Sparta, south of Athens, said Kent McMullen, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Peachtree City. Authorities have not released the victim’s name.
A spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency said three other people were injured in Hancock County.
GEMA spokesman Buzz Weiss said he didn’t have any further details and that weather service experts would have to determine if a tornado hit the county.
Two people were reported injured in Spalding County and one each in Coweta and Putnam counties. The Coweta County injury was from a lightning strike.
The Georgia Power Co. reported more than 4,000 customers without electricity at the height of the storms Wednesday night, with 1,400 customers statewide still without service this morning. That included at least 1,000 customers in the metro area south of Atlanta.
Jackson Electric Membership Corp., Walton Electric Membership Corp. and Georgia Power reported few outages in the area Wednesday night — about 200 in Southern Oconee County, 400 in Walton County and 550 in Morgan County.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
STORY NUMBER 2 FROM DIFFERENT SOURCE LISTED
Loss of brother, church mourned after storms
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church, a 144-year-old congregation in rural Hancock County near Sparta, had only recently dedicated a $150,000 addition when a storm came along Wednesday and destroyed everything.
Still, the Rev. Michael Curry told 60 church members at a prayer service Thursday night at another church nearby, “All that work was not in vain.”
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Christine Baker, 61, right, who lost her brother, her home, and her church in the storm, gets a hug from Alma Hunt, as members of the Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church hold a prayer service at Victory Baptist Church in Sparta.
Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com
Latierra Harden, 3, finds two of her dresses in the scattered debris of her mobile home on Hickory Grove Church Road in Hancock County. She and her mother, Katie Barnes, were not home when the storm hit.
• Reader storm photos: See hail
• Send photos
• Radar map
RELATED:
• More weather information
• Vent about the weather
Recent headlines:
• Metro and state news
Sometimes, he said, God has to tear down in order to rebuild.
“We are going to be bigger and better from this tragedy,” Curry told his flock as they gathered at Victory Baptist Church, on Ga. 22 in Sparta. “I know we are going to triumph; we are going to have a victory at Hickory Grove.”
The storms that raked North Georgia on Wednesday night left one man dead, several others injured, and scattered reports of damage to homes and cars in more than a dozen counties.
The fatality was a Hickory Grove member. John Frank Baker, whose age was not immediately available, was killed, and his daughter and two grandchildren were injured when the storm hit their trailer across the street from the church.
Christine Baker, 61, lost her brother, her church and her own mobile home, which was down the street from John Baker’s place.
“God saved my family,” Baker said. “I know he took my brother, but he saved my other brother …. He is still here with us. Praise God.”
Elsewhere, two people were reported injured in Spalding County, along with one each in Coweta and Putnam counties. The Coweta County injury was from a lightning strike.
Numerous funnel clouds touched down in several spots across north Georgia around sundown, the National Weather Service said.
Early damage estimates from Wednesday’s tornados and thunderstorms may exceed $10 million, Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John Oxendine said Thursday afternoon after taking a helicopter tour of Coweta, Spalding and Fayette counties. “This is an extremely early estimate,” Oxendine cautioned.
One insurance company alone, State Farm, said Thursday it expects to see as many as 750 claims from homeowners and businesses and as many as 1,000 claims for damaged vehicles.
High winds and golf-ball sized hail produced spotty damage to homes and cars in Gwinnett, south Fulton, Henry, Spalding, Coweta and Fayette counties, said Buzz Weiss, of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. Heavy storms also pounded parts of Forsyth and north Fulton counties.
About 1,000 Georgia Power customers in the Grantville area of Coweta County awoke Thursday morning without service because seven power poles were blown down, said Jeff Wilson, a spokesman for the utility.
The hardest hit area of the state appeared to be Jasper, Putnam and Hancock counties. Massive cells of thunderstorms and swirling winds moved across that area about 7:30 p.m. and again around 11 p.m.
In Sparta, about 100 miles southeast of Atlanta, Hickory Grove members opened their Thursday night service by singing “Come by here, my Lord.”
Curry said, “We’re here tonight to face loss: the loss of one of our members, the loss of our homes and loss of our church, but still to give God the praise.”
“This is a time we ought to be like Crazy Glue,” the pastor said. “We all need to stick together.”
— Mike Morris contributed to this story.
Hail damages homes, vehicles in north Coweta
The Times-Herald
The intense hailstorm that passed through northern Coweta Wednesday evening dented cars, cracked windows, and shattered a few windshields -- but, on the whole, the damage was relatively minor.
A drive through the Roscoe and northern Coweta area Thursday revealed few signs of damage. One home had extensive golf ball-sized dents in its metal roof, but little other damage was visible. Some roads were carpeted with fallen pine needles and small twigs, but no major limbs.
The Coweta-Fayette EMC headquarters on Collinsworth Road near Palmetto received some hail damage, and some vehicles that were in the parking lot were hit as well, said EMC official Mary Ann Bell.
Motorists on nearby Interstate 85 took cover when the storm hit.
Sayed Pirani, manager of Mac's Marathon on Collinsworth Road at Exit 56, and his coworker received hail damage to their vehicles. Pirani said that as the hail started to fall he and his coworker decided to move their vehicles under the canopy of the gas pumps. But by the time they made it outside, it was too late. The canopies were crammed with vehicles. Cars and trucks were rushing off the interstate for cover.
"People were driving all crazy -- I was waiting for someone to crash through the store," Pirani said. One woman had pulled into the parking lot and was trying to get under the canopy when a hail stone smashed through her back windshield, shattering it.
A few families who lived in the two mobile home parks behind the store decided to ride out the storm inside the Marathon, Pirani said, because they felt like the building was much more secure than their mobile homes.
When the storm subsided, the parking lot was covered with mounds of ice, which were pushed into a small ice mountain. Then "people came and took bags of hail" home with them, Pirani said.
Tony Brown, who was at the Marathon store Thursday, lives in the heart of the south Coweta area hit by the storms later Wednesday night. Luckily, his home was safe, but some of his neighbors didn't fare as well. Trees were all over the place, and work crews and news crews were everywhere. "It looked like showbiz," he said. "Like something you see in a movie."
SECOND STORY ANOTHER SOURCE
Hail Strikes Several Georgia Communities
 Posted By: Cal Callaway
TYRONE --- Wednesday night's storm system which hit North and Central Georgia produced hail storms in a number of areas. One of the hardest hit areas was the town of Tyrone in Fayette County. A number of 11Alive viewers submitted photographs of the hail in Tyrone. 11Alive's Keith Whitney say one vehicle which suffered heavy damage from the hail storm. State Insurance and Fire Commissioner John Oxendine is touring the state Thursday to get a first hand look at the damage and come up with a damage estimate.
In your voiceRead reactions to this story
|
|
Updated 2/19/2009 3:24:33 PM
