Remembering the Dunwoody tornado of '98

Metro Atlanta

Remembering the Dunwoody tornado of '98

Remembering the Dunwoody tornado of '98

Grace Seckman showed the playhouse clock she found in the rubble. It stopped at the time the tornado crushed it in April 1998. Luckily, no one in the family was hurt.

Joe Conboy (blue) emerges from the rubble with a red dress he salvaged as his home was demolished. The red dress was one he got his wife on the day he proposed marriage. Now after having five children and surviving the tornado in Dunwoody, his family's home was going to be torn down.

Suki Janisch (in green) dug through the rubble in the bedroom where her father-in-law John Janisch was killed when the 1998 tornado caused a tree to fall on the home. Greg Nordin (top) with DSI Disaster Services prepared to tarp the roof to keep the rain out.

Jay Leslie surveyed the damage to his in-laws' historic home on Chamblee Dunwoody Road. The home, called the W.J. Donaldson House and Cemetery, is estimated to have been built around 1870. Leslie's wife, Caroline, grew up in that room. The oldest post oak in Dekalb County was also in their front yard. It was toppled by the storm.

An aerial photo showed some of the damage done by severe storms that passed through Dunwoody in April 1998.

John Head tried to figure out what kinds of trees to replant in the areas wiped out by the weather. He had more than 20 mature trees ranging from 20 years old to more than 200 years old. In 1998 he walked under the remains of a 200-plus-year-old Post Oak that fell in the front lawn.

Melissa Angel,13, looked over her bedroom that was destroyed during the tornado in Dunwoody. Luckily she was not asleep in her bed. The family was away on spring break.

Renee Wagner, 7, (left) shows a long lost toy to her mother Karen Wagner (right) in her old playroom. Their home was destroyed by the tornado in April 1998.

The second story portion of 5264 Fleur de lis Court off of Happy Hollow was damaged during the tornado.

A truck spreading water on Fountainbleau Court drives past homes that were wrecked as a result of the April 9, 1998 tornado. Many of the houses to be demolished were marked on front with an orange X.

Fast forward 10 years to 2008. Art Collins' grandson, Gabe, 6, climbs a fence in his grandparents' backyard. The tree in the photo was planted just after the tornado to provide some much-needed cover.

The April 9, 1998 tornado destroyed 3,000 homes and uprooted nearly 60,000 trees in Dunwoody. This area at Winters Chapel Road and Charmant Place was hit. The neighborhood used to be heavily forested.

Art Collins does some work in his front yard in 2008. He and his wife, Betty, lived through one of the worst tornados to strike the area nearly 10 years earlier. The storm felled 37 trees on their property, but their house received minimal damage.

Dunwoody resident John Thayer walks through the thicket in his sprawling, forested backyard. Thayer, who did not own the house at the time of the tornado, still recalls seeing video of the nearly 80 trees that were uprooted on the property.

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Grace Seckman showed the playhouse clock she found in the rubble. It stopped at the time the tornado crushed it in April 1998. Luckily, no one in the family was hurt.

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