78,000 people still without power

About 78,000 people in the Atlanta area remained in the dark Monday night — victims of the morning and afternoon storms that raked North Georgia and left one man dead.

Georgia Power spokesman Jeff Wilson said Monday night that some people in hard-hit areas — Decatur, Tucker, Midtown Atlanta and Buckhead — might not have power restored until Wednesday.

A tree fell on a vehicle in Buckhead, killing one person.

Vino Wong / vwong@ajc.com

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Georgia Power had about 1,700 workers on the street Monday night and planned to bring in about 1,000 other workers on Tuesday from out of state, he said.

Wilson said about 73,000 Georgia Power customers were still without power in the metro Atlanta area Monday night, about 84,000 statewide.

The Georgia Electric Membership Corporation reported that 11,000 people didn’t have power Monday night, about half in Atlanta and half in North Georgia.

Statewide, about 290,000 customers were without service at the peak of the outages, according to the GEMC.

Atlanta may be hit by even more rain Tuesday even while the cleanup is under way.

The forecast for metro Atlanta calls for a 30 percent chance of rain Tuesday. High will be in the mid-60s, with overnight lows in the mid-50s. Dry weather with highs in the 60s and 70s is forecast for the back half of the week.

The storm killed one man.

Raymond Jones, 63, of Pickens County died about 10 a.m. Monday in Buckhead. Atlanta police investigators said winds toppled a tree, which smashed the passenger compartment of a car traveling on Nachoochee Drive near Peachtree Battle Avenue. Then the car caught fire.

Mary Gossett King, who lives on Nacoochee, didn’t see the accident, but she heard it.

“I could tell a tree had come down, and then a horn started blaring nonstop,” King said.

She looked out a window and saw a truck beneath a massive trunk. “The wheels kept spinning, the tires were blowing out.”

She said she called 911 and was put on hold, then ran two doors down to a neighbor’s house to use another phone. By the time she did, she said, smoke had enshrouded the vehicle.

“Throughout the city we’ve had a ton of trees and wires down,” said Atlanta Fire Capt. Bill May, who was at the scene later. “It took us a while to get here because so many streets were blocked.”

The storms felled trees and power lines across the metro area and left streets and yards covered in tree limbs and debris.

In Atlanta, a tree fell onto Ponce de Leon Avenue near the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop, stopping afternoon rush hour traffic in both directions. In Decatur, trees knocked down power lines — or threatened to bring them down — causing officials to close five streets and intersections, City Manager Peggy Merriss said.

In Johns Creek, downed trees briefly blocked about a dozen roads including Old Alabama, Nesbit Ferry, Haynes Bridge and Alvin roads. A few traffic lights were knocked out, including those on State Bridge and Medlock Bridge roads. Roads were clear by noon, said Public Works Director Ken Hildebrandt.

Winds gusting to more than 50 mph downed trees and limbs across North Georgia, and emergency crews scrambled to handle hundreds of calls about damaged houses or blocked roads.

MARTA trains were shut down for about an hour because of power outages. Service was restored shortly before 1 p.m.

Earlier, an Atlanta fire crew reported a tree down on one of its own trucks on Collier Drive, but there were no injuries. Emergency crews also responded to a report of an elderly person trapped in a house hit by a tree on Argus Circle in Atlanta. It turned out no one was home, but the one-story brick home was heavily damaged by an oak 3 to 4 feet in diameter.

Cobb County police responded to a number of weather-related wrecks and one report of a woman in a car hit by a tree, but there were no serious injuries, police Sgt. Dana Pierce said.

Tree trunks and limbs littered roads across the region, snarling mid-morning traffic. Recent wet weather left the ground softened and made trees more vulnerable to being pushed over by gusts.

In DeKalb, so many people deluged 911 with storm reports that officials urged those with non-emergency problems to call an alternative number: 404-294-2911.

“Our 911 center is being inundated with calls about downed trees and power lines,” county spokeswoman Kristie Swink said.

Swink said the county government center on Memorial Drive near I-285 lost power, causing officials at the county Recorder’s Court to cancel hearings for the day.

The county’s Maloof government center in downtown Decatur suffered only flickering lights, but the county courthouse across the street lost power for several hours.

Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger said he closed his courtroom and canceled hearings because of security concerns with defendants.

“The only thing that’s on in our courtroom is the exit lights,” the judge said just after noon. By 1 p.m., power had returned to the courthouse, but by then Seeliger had postponed the day’s trial hearings until Tuesday morning.

In Forsyth County, several boats were damaged or missing at Lan-Mar Marina on Lake Lanier, the weather service said. The Forsyth fire department said a dock at the marina “disintegrated.”

Forsyth County’s 911 center fielded 167 calls from 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. Monday, compared to 12 in the same period on Sunday. These included 41 calls about trees on power lines and 46 calls about trees blocking roads.

No serious auto accidents were reported, said Capt. Frank Huggins, spokesman for the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office.

Flights in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were delayed up to an hour, the FAA said. The airport reported a gust of 52 mph about 10 a.m.

Power outages began in the suburbs west of Atlanta but soon mushroomed as a strong line of rain squalls moved across the metro area.

In Norcross, storms downed gigantic oak trees, including one that fell on top of the mayor’s house.

“I got a hole in my roof the size of a Volkswagen,” Bucky Johnson said.

Neither Johnson nor his wife was home when the biggest part of the tree tore through their bedroom ceiling, he said.

“Obviously it’s a pain to get things fixed, but as long as everyone’s OK, I’m cool with that.”

— Staff writers Ariel Hart, Nancy Badertscher, Mary Lou Pickel and Kay Powell contributed to this article.