DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 8:59 p.m. February 19, 2009
Deadly storm could cost more than $10 million
One man dies, others injured as tornadoes touched down across state
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Early damage estimates from Wednesday’s tornadoes and thunderstorms may exceed $10 million, Georgia’s top insurance official said.
“This is an extremely early estimate,” Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John Oxendine said Thursday afternoon after taking a helicopter tour of Coweta, Spalding and Fayette counties.
John Spink / jspink@ajc.com
Robert Skinner’s house, cars and farm equipment were destroyed in Moreland.
Sandi Bramblett
Reader Sandi Bramblett sent this photo of baseball-size hail that fell in Fayetteville around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
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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.
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.
A man died in Hancock County, northeast of Macon, when he was swept out of a mobile home that was destroyed, Hancock officials reported. A woman and two children in the home were injured.
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.
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, southeast of the metro area. Massive cells of thunderstorms and swirling winds moved across that area about 7:30 p.m. and again around 11 p.m.
The Hancock man who died was John Frank Baker, said Patrick Williams of the Hancock sheriff’s office. He did not have condition reports on the others in the home but said one of the injured children was airlifted to a hospital.
Baker’s mobile home was in a small rural community near Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church. The 144-year-old church’s buildings and some of the other homes nearby were destroyed.
“The church is gone, the house is gone,” Williams said.
Willie Gilbert, another resident of the community around the church, said he huddled in a corner with his wife Lena and son Willie Jr. As the storm blew their home apart, he said, the family fled the structure and “held onto each other tight … that’s the only thing that saved us.”
The Rev. Michael Curry said the church just dedicated a $150,000 addition with a fellowship hall and education wing. Members planned to gather Thursday night at a nearby church for a service and discussion of what to do next.
“It’s unfortunate this occurred, and definitely this building will be replaced, but the loss of one of our members is the tragedy in the whole situation,” Curry said. “It could have been a lot worse. A lot more lives could have been lost.”
Church member Harry Ingram said, “We’re not worried about the church. This can be replaced. It’s the community we’re worried about.”
— Mike Morris contributed to this story.
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