GRIFFIN -- Disasters can bring out the best and worst in people. Jerry Gilreath has seen both sides in the wake of the tornado that tore through Sunny Side, a community outside Griffin in Spalding County.
Friday, volunteers helped Gilreath sort through the remnants of her mobile home, which were twisted around a tree. And they helped her find safe storage for the few valuables that survived -- necessary because looters have targeted the area.
“People have been taking refrigerators, hot-water heaters, air conditioner units … whatever stuff they could load up quickly,” Spalding County health inspector Gene Polk told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We were actually passing water out to folks we thought were residents, and they were there to take things.”
Spalding County Sheriff’s Department Lt. David Gibson said deputies had received three reports of looting since tornadoes struck the area around 12:30 a.m., on Thursday.
Offsetting the mischief were countless acts of kindness, including the half dozen people helping Gilreath and her landlords clean up after the storm.
“Something just told me to stop and help,” said Drew Maurice, who pulled up to Gilreath’s yard Thursday afternoon to find her crying.
Maurice had volunteered before with area an non-profit, We Care, Inc. He felt compelled to lend a hand – and even call for more help – he said.
“What do you do when your entire life is wrapped around an oak tree?” he asked. “If something like this happened to me or to my family, I would want somebody to stop and help.”
Gilreath, 63, lives alone. She had only moved into her trailer 10 days earlier, and she needed all the help she could get.
“I thank God for them,” she said of the many people who continued to show up Friday.
The night of the storm, Gilreath was still settling into her new digs with her three dogs when she heard the tornado approaching. She crawled under her kitchen table and braced for whatever was to come.
“The floor raised up and shook to one side, then to the next,” Gilreath said. “The washing machine toppled over on me and I was pinned down.”
Her home began shuddering and buckling.
“Something soft flew past me, and I reached out and grabbed it,” Gilreath said. “It was a pillow. I put it over my head and hung on for dear life.”
The entire structure pitched over, then began tumbling, she said. One wall was ripped out as the trailer rolled. Then her home split in half.
“Somehow, I fell out onto the ground,” Gilreath said. “I couldn’t see anything, but heard the most awful crash.”
In the flickering of lightning, she could see that her mobile home was no more.
“I had to get to my truck,” she recalled thinking. “I knew it might be destroyed, but it would be better than nothing.”
She found her way to the battered pick-up and crawled in to wait out the tempest.
“Then it got quiet,” she said.
The next day, Gilreath’s sister came down from Gwinnett County to help, but the job was bigger than the two of them. That’s when Maurice showed.
Within an hour, he had a dozen people helping. Friday, even more arrived.
“They are angels,” Gilreath said.
Twelve-year-old Merrit Fry asked his mother to let him miss school on Friday to help out.
“I couldn’t just sit by and do nothing,” Fry said. “People needed help.”
Still, Maurice had to take Gilreath’s computer and flat-screen TV – amazingly, still intact – and put them in storage so they wouldn't be stolen.
Looting at the nearby Ponderosa Mobile Home park had residents there afraid to leave for temporary shelter, Polk, of the Spalding County health department, said.
Residents there described watching a man prey upon the storm's victims.
“He got a group of teenagers and started loading up a pick-up,” resident and property employee Rebecca Meninger said. “I saw his tag and called the police.”
Lt. Gibson said one individual was being held in custody for questioning related to looting from trailer parks. But there have been no charges.
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