DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 8:22 p.m. April 11, 2009
Weather service: 4 tornadoes hit Georgia
Strong winds and hail reported throughout state
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, April 10, 2009
Turns out there was something to those tornado warnings after all.
Four twisters touched down in Georgia during Friday evening’s sound and fury, according to preliminary National Weather Service reports issued Saturday night.
KENT D. JOHNSON / kdjohnson@ajc.com
Marble-sized hail sits in a Stone Mountain yard on Friday night.
The first twister touched down in Pickens County just after 6 p.m. The storm had 90 mph winds roaring along Ga. 136 northeast of Jasper, uprooting numerous trees and snapping power lines.
The devastation then moved to the southwest part of the state, where Chattahoochee County was hit by two separate twisters starting a little before 10 p.m. Both were spawned by the same “super cell” thunderstorm.
Some two hours later, a 200-yard-wide tornado touched down in Sumter County near Lake Blackshear, damaging 45 homes.
Metro Atlanta appeared to have been spared any actual tornadoes, but that was little comfort to people drying out after a night of heavy wind, rain and hail.
Nearly an inch of rain fell at Fulton County Airport in the 24-hour period beginning Friday night, according to the Weather Service office in Peachtree City. There, things were almost as soggy: More than a half-inch of rain fell there, while nearly a half inch soaked Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta.
On Lake Lanier, according to Forsyth County officials, boat and dock owners were dealing with boats that tipped over in the torrent of rain and wind that also damaged ramps and docks.
The biggest hail laid siege to northwest Georgia, where ice balls about as big as baseballs, 2 3/4 inches in diameter, were reported, according to the Weather Service. In other areas across the state, the hail more often came in sizes of golf balls and English peas.
In Augusta, wind blew off the roof of a nursing home, and about 135 residents had to spend the night in a hospital, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. Several trees were knocked down in Polk County, including one that crashed on two homes in Rockmart.
In Franklin County, about 25 homes, and chicken houses, were damaged by hail, wind and rain. In Gwinnett County, a tree landed on a residence near Buford.
Almost all power was restored across the state by Saturday morning, said GEMA spokesman Ken Davis. At one point more than 10,000 Georgia Power customers — roughly 7,600 of them in northwest Georgia — were without juice, according to utility spokeswoman Lynn Wallace.
In metro Atlanta, about 1,700 customers lost power in the north Druid Hills area of Dekalb County. Another 217 were without electricity in College Park.
Saturday night’s forecast was for partly to mostly cloudy skies, with low temperatures in the mid 40s.
Sunday may be perfect Easter bonnet weather: The forecast is for sunny skies in the morning, turning partly cloudy in the mid-afternoon, with a high of around 72.
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