DEL.ICIO.USFriday tornado pummels downtown; Saturday storm kills 2
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/14/08
Two people are dead and Atlanta is under a state of emergency as the city picks up from the first downtown tornado in history.
The latest developments:
 Ben Gray/AJC | ||
| Basketball fans survey the damage in the Georgia Dome roof. | ||
 Ben Gray/AJC | ||
| A hole shows in the roof of the Georgia Dome. | ||
• A broad-reaching tornado watch spanning the upper half of the state has been issued until early Sunday morning. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch that stretches from Rome to Columbus. The watch, designating conditions favorable for one or more tornadoes, will last until 1 a.m.
• Georgia nearly closed in on last year's record number of tornado reports, and 75 hail storms were reported Saturday. The NWS reported 10 possible tornadoes Saturday, all clustered in northern metro Atlanta and North Georgia, forecaster Stephen Konarik said.
"On March 1 last year, we had 14 tornados across the state," Konarik said. "That would be the bar in terms of most tornadoes in a single day."
There were 94 hail storms stretching across Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina Saturday, with the bulk of the storms landing in the metro area, he said.
• Gov. Sonny Perdue and Mayor Shirley Franklin declared a state of emergency in the areas of metro Atlanta damaged by Friday night's storms. In signing the executive order, Perdue said, "State resources are being made available to assist in the cleanup efforts. I have also spoken to FEMA Administrator David Paulison, and we will continue to coordinate closely to marshal federal, state and local resources as we recover."
• At least two people were killed during the storms -- one in Polk County and another in neighboring Floyd County. Neither person's identity has been released.
Floyd County Deputy Chief Coroner Tony Cooper said an elderly man, who was home alone, was killed by flying debris. "His house is gone," Cooper said. "You can't even tell it's a house. It was a small frame home."
Scottie Hancock, director of Floyd County's Emergency Management Agency, said two people in a car parked next door to the man's house also were critically injured when their vehicle was tossed into the air. The elderly man's wife had evacuated before the storm.
Hancock said about 20 houses were demolished and another 20 were damaged.
On the other side of the county line, a Polk County couple was snatched from their house and tossed into a field. The woman was killed while the man survived, according to local EMS director Thomas Wilson.
• Damage to the power system in North Georgia was worse than Georgia Power first thought. At Saturday's peak, about 41,000 customers lost power. By late Saturday, half of those customers had regained electricity, but there were still 20,000 across the state that were still in the dark -- 10,000 in the Atlanta area and 2,500 in Cartersville, Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said.
Most of the outages in Atlanta were in the downtown area, Wilson said.
Company spokesman John Sell said two major transmission power lines coming out of its Bowen coal plant are down. The plant is near Cartersville. It's among the biggest on Georgia Power's system.
• State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine says the damage could be as high as $150 million, according to preliminary estimates. He said the bulk of that damage occurred at the Georgia World Congress Center, where windows were shattered, seats were scattered and portions of the ceiling sustained major damage.
"There is not a building that is safe" at the Georgia World Congress Center, Oxendine said.
• Much of north Georgia, including metro Atlanta, is under a tornado watch until 7 p.m., the National Weather Service said late this morning.
• Early this afternoon, authorities were advising people to stay out of three areas of the city: downtown, Vine City and Cabbagetown, especially the Cotton Mill lofts. An additional 125 officers will be patrolling those areas for the next 18 hours.
"It is important for the public to stay at home," Mayor Shirley Franklin said. "Do not use this as an opportunity for sightseeing."
• The Red Cross is placing displaced residents at two locations: Helene Mills recreation center and the Central Park recreation center. The agency moved at least 70 people from Helene Mills to extended stay hotels.
• As of noon, as the city braced for the next storm, 10,000 Georgia Power customers were without power. Crews repaired downed lines and poles throughout the night, with 30,000 losing power at some point. The peak outage was 19,000.
If the new storms are strong, the company said it will have its linemen stand down until it passes, to protect their safety. "We're monitoring the situation, as you might imagine," said spokesman Jason Cuevas. "If it looks like it's going to be severe, we'll pull them."
• Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran reported 30 injuries following Friday's storms; none were serious. The injured included one firefighter who suffered an ankle injury.
• Friday night's tornado was declared a category EF2, with the strongest winds reaching 135 mph. Tornadoes can reach up to a category EF5 with 300 mph winds. The tornado was 200 yards wide at its widest. It left a path of damage six miles long, said meteorologist Mike Griesinger with the National Weather Service.
• Friday's twister touched down near the World Congress center, Philips Arena, the Equitable Building, and then across to Cabbagetown. The twister is the first to hit downtown Atlanta since such weather recording-keeping began in the 1880s, Griesinger said.
• Damage was sufficient. At Centennial Olympic Park, two of the 65-foot tall "Hermes Towers" that resemble giant Olympic torches were blown down. The Georgia World Congress Center reported widespread damage, including to its roof. Even a downtown Atlanta penthouse belonging to Ted Turner suffered damage. The familiar bison-shaped sign outside his Ted's Montana Grill restaurant will need to be replaced.
• The tornado may have seemed to strike Atlanta with no warning, but that's not true. The weather service issued a tornado warning about 12 minutes before the twister touched down in the city, Griesinger said.
"There was a warning," he said.
He said 12 minutes is about an average amount of time for a tornado warning. The warnings are sent out to local TV stations, weather radios, emergency management offices and cell phones programed to receive weather alerts. The TV stations typically air such warnings almost instantaneously, he said.
Friday's storm hit fast and furious -- and with little warning.
Shortly before 10 p.m., winds whirled through downtown Atlanta, taking aim at CNN Center, the Omni Hotel and the Georgia Dome, which was packed with thousands of Southeastern Conference basketball fans.
The bulk of the storm's wrath fell on the core of the city.
Sections of the Georgia Dome's roof were ripped off, forcing officials to move the four remaining games in the SEC tournament -- three today and one on Sunday -- to Georgia Tech's Alexander Memorial Coliseum. Ticket holders will not be allowed in the arena. The first of three games today -- Georgia-Kentucky -- tipped off at noon, with the Bulldogs pulling off a 60-56 upset in overtime.
Access to the remaining games of the tournament will be limited to athletes' family members, cheerleaders, bands and other credentialed individuals, the SEC announced.
Officials from the SEC, the schools remaining in the tourney and the Dome deliberated from midnight to roughly 4 a.m. Saturday before announcing a new schedule and ticket policy. Alexander seats 9,191 fans, much fewer than the 25,000 the Dome holds.
For a few nervous minutes during Saturday's action, fans at Alexander Memorial Coliseum had a sense of tornado deja vu. Fans from both Tennessee and Arkansas were allowed into the building at about 4 p.m., two hours before tipoff of the Volunteers' and Razorbacks' tournament semifinal game.
Not long after the fans came in, the public address announcer informed the crowd that a tornado warning had been issued for Atlanta and that they should come further inside the coliseum and away from the glass that surrounds the concourse. They didn't have to be warned twice and scurried into the interior of the coliseum.
Not long after that, a severe thunderstorm came through downtown, pounding the roof of the coliseum, not unlike the way the Georgia Dome roof was pounded Friday night.
The storm lasted only a few minutes, but that was enough for frightened fans who'd been in the Dome the night before.
They remembered seeing a vacant two-story commercial building across from Centennial Olympic Park come down.
They remembered seeing massive pieces of metal siding peel off a Marietta Street parking garage and wrap around poles or clogged sidewalks and streets.
"I have not seen anything like this before," Atlanta fire Battalion Chief Gerry Rusinski said after surveying the scene Friday night. "It looked like 9-11 when we pulled up."
Somehow, serious injuries seemed to be few and far between in the aftermath of Friday's storms.
Four area hospitals, including Grady Memorial Hospital and Atlanta Medical Center, reported taking in 16 patients from Friday's storm -- most with minor injuries, though one reportedly in critical condition.
Ambulances responded to 106 calls between 9 p.m. Friday and 2:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Denise Simpson, spokeswoman for Grady EMS, which handles ambulance transports within the city.
Simpson said that only 50 of those people were taken to four hospitals but only one person was kept for observation. Of the 50, 20 were taken to Grady hospital. Only one was kept for observation.
One was treated and released from Piedmont Hospital. Twelve were treated and released from Atlanta Medical Center. The rest were taken to Emory Crawford Long Hospital.
The same strong winds that sent patients to Grady also damaged buildings and ambulances there, officials said Saturday.
Among the hardest hit communities Friday was Cabbagetown, where this morning about 50 search-and-rescue team members worked on three areas of Stacks Lofts (170 Boulevard), which had collapsed. Large chunks of four floors collapsed on top of each other like a pancake.
The hunt for possible survivors or bodies could take up to 36 hours, Atlanta fire Capt. Bill May said Saturday morning.
Also taking a beating was East Atlanta Village, a hip enclave of restaurants and boutiques in the southeast corner of the city not far from Cabbagetown. Usually bustling weekend haunts such as Joe's Coffee Shop and the Australian Bakery were dark and empty, closed because of the power outages in the area. Along Flat Shoals Avenue, several massive trees were on the ground. Street signs and several roofs were crumpled and bent. Traffic crawled through the Village because traffic lights were still out after more than 12 hours.
Sandy Smith of Douglasville was at the SEC tournament game when the storm hit. The Alabama-Mississippi State quarterfinal game had gone into overtime when she heard a loud boom.
The ceiling started waving like a sheet.
"The lights started moving and the TV monitor started swaying back and forth," she said. Then a pole and sign tore a hole in the roof.
Outside, windows popped and shattered at the Omni Hotel. A billboard across from Olympic Park fell onto a car. Newspaper stands dropped in rows like dominos on sidewalks. Trees were pulled from the ground.
Darryll Douthard, 42, a valet parking attendant for the Thrive restaurant on Marietta Street, said one man drove into the parking garage as the storm hit.
As Douthard rushed him in a rear door, the man resisted, worrying about his car.
"Are you concerned with your car or your life? Douthard asked. "Get in the staircase!"
Marietta Street, deserted Saturday, turned into a sea of bodies hours before -- many of them in basketball jerseys. Some were crying and visibly shaken.
Other than an Easter egg hunt at the Governor's mansion, most of Saturday's activities were scratched. Philips Arena reported no damage but called off its "Winter Jam Spectacular" concert. The downtown St. Patrick's Day parade was canceled. And thousands of attendees were turned away Saturday morning from the Georgia World Congress Center, site of the Thomas P. Hinman Dental Meeting.
Several were still shaken from Friday night's trauma.
"The wind just kept getting faster and faster and louder and louder," said dentist Doug Clepper of Augusta. He and his wife took the fire escape downstairs from their 10th floor room in Omni Hotel.
"It was very surreal. People were dressed up for parties. Women were crying."
The storms also brought out the good sides in people.
A Cabbagetown art gallery was offering its space to people whose homes were damaged by the storms. And they were throwing in bottled water, wine and free Wi-Fi.
Jess Blankenship, who is on the board for Eyedrum on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, said she sent out an e-mail to neighbors.
"We just figured we are centrally located," Blankenship said. "We sent out an e-mail to the neighborhood to let them know our doors are open."
Her message to neighbors? "We may not have the comfiest of accommodations but we have a few couches, tons of space and we will be bringing in pillows, blankets and whatever else we can to make people comfortable. ... We wish there was more we could do to help. ... Hopefully some of you or your neighbors can benefit from having a place to stay or serve as a home base that's within walking distance of the areas hardest hit."
Blankenship said people wanting to bed down at the gallery should call 404-522-0655.
-- Rhonda Cook, Eric Stirgus, Tim Eberly, Margaret Newkirk, Michael Gray, Doug Nurse, Chandler Brown, Chip Towers, Craig Schneider, Phil Gast, Paul Shea, Paul Kasko, Gayle White, Michelle Shaw, Mike Knobler, Tony Barnhart, Sonji Jacobs, Anisha Frizzell, Ben Smith, Andy Miller and Celine Bufkin contributed to this article.
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