When the weather turned ugly — really ugly — in Clayton County early Sunday, the littlest survivor of the Ellenwood tornado hit the road running.

Deborah Hall and Marie Griffith live in the Stagecoach Village subdivision, near the DeKalb and Henry county lines.

Mike Morris/AJC (ENLARGE)

Goldie, the pekingese, surveys the damage to the Stagecoach Village subdivision, on Monday.

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Hall said that when the tornado hit, her garage door was ripped open "just like a hand had grabbed it."

That's when Goldie, Griffith's Pekingese puppy, ran out of the house, through what was left of the garage door, and out into the height of the storm.

Griffith said that about an hour later, a very wet but otherwise unharmed Goldie came straggling home.

The early-morning tornado ripped a huge hole in the rear of their house, but left the front of the house pretty much intact.

On Monday, Hall said she and Griffith, both transplants from New Jersey, hadn't yet decided where they will live while their home is repaired.

"They're probably going to have to knock down the whole back part of my house and rebuild it," Hall said. "I know it's going to take a long time."

Griffith and Hall spent Sunday night in the front part of their house.

"We didn't go near the back area," Hall said. "The fire marshal had said that if we see any water spots [on the ceiling], that if that falls on you, it's gonna feel like it weighs 900 pounds.

"And we saw a water spot in the bedroom, over the ceiling," she said.

Neighbor Andrew Dickerson said he rode out the storm in a bathroom of his house, which he described as "that piece of [junk] over there."

Dickerson described the classic freight train sound as the storm hit.

"I didn't hear the house getting torn up," he said. "I didn't realize until it was over with, and the next thing I heard was silence."

"I came out of the bathroom and that's when I seen chunks of my house just falling," said Dickerson, a truck driver for Con-Way Freight. "It was already on the ground."

Dickerson, 41, said he went outside and checked on neighbors to make sure they were okay. No injuries were reported in the neighborhood other than bumps and bruises.

Dickerson, who has lived in the neighborhood for five years, said he would like to rebuild his house, which was totaled.

"I can't patch that up," he said. "They're going to tear it down and insurance is going to take care of it."

Meantime, Dickerson said, he isn't sure where he'll live.

"I'm still kind of shocked," he said. "It's sinking in, but I'm trying to force it back."

Dickerson said that when daylight broke on Sunday and he got a good look at the devastation, "the first thing I did was start drinking, I ain't gonna lie."

He said his plans for Monday included "getting a six pack and sitting on my car and looking at it. Just watch them clean up."