It seemed to come out of nowhere. Lindsey Woodall and her family were jolted awake shortly after 5 a.m. Thursday by what sounded like a bomb. They quickly realized they were in the path of a powerful storm.
“It picked us and sat down right on our road,” Woodall said. “We have about eight giant trees that look like a giant came through and picked them up.”
The weather that muscled into North Georgia early Thursday toppled trees and power lines and made travel treacherous in metro Atlanta for much of the day. A falling tree struck a car driving eastbound at Ashford-Dunwoody Road on I-285. The vehicle was smashed but the motorist was not seriously injured, the Dunwoody Police Department said.
Georgia Power and Georgia EMC reported more than 20,000 customers lost electricity due to the storms. Most had their power restored by Thursday evening.
In Gwinnett County, a power line fell onto a school bus, but no students were aboard and no injuries were reported. Standing water filled Atlanta’s Krog Street Tunnel, which links Inman Park and Cabbagetown. Flooding stranded drivers in Dalton and washed away roads in Cherokee County, while stretches in Fulton, DeKalb, Cobb and Paulding counties were temporarily blocked due to water and fallen trees, officials said.
The Red Cross was assisting 12 families displaced from the Garden Court Apartments on Janice Street in East Point. Power outages and structural instability forced the residents out of their homes, according to a Red Cross spokesperson. The organization was also assisting six other metro-area families.
The stormy weather Thursday also impacted arrivals and departures at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. A traffic management program is in place, causing some arriving flights to be delayed an average of 1 hour and 50 minutes, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The threat of severe weather was over by late Thursday afternoon, but the risk of flooding lingered. A flash flood watch for most of North Georgia was expected to remain in effect until 7 a.m. Friday. There’s only a 20 percent chance of rain in the Friday forecast, according to Channel 2 Action News Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns. Next, he said, will be the return of winter weather.
“As cold air moves in behind the cold front that brought heavy rain and severe storms, higher elevations could see up to an inch of snowfall overnight through Friday morning,” Burns said.
The forecast forced several North Georgia school districts to delay classes. No accumulation is expected in metro Atlanta, but a snowflake or two is possible, Burns said.
North Georgia got some of the most serious soaking on Friday. McCaysville and Morganton in Fannin County got 4.5 inches and 4.22 inches of rain, according to Channel 2. The tiny town of Ila in Morgan County recorded 4.38 inches. Classes were dismissed early in some counties while others dealt with tornado warnings.
Woodall said she and her Gordon County neighbors are grateful to be alive, given all the suddenly horizontal trees. A neighbor’s car was crushed but no one was hurt, she said. Her uncle owns a 50-acre cattle farm nearby, and while his home sustained significant damage, his animals weren’t hurt.
“We’re just a bunch of survivors up here,” she said. “We’re really fortunate.”
