Loss of brother, church mourned after storms

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.