HARALSON COUNTY, Ga. — The National Weather Service is on the ground surveying storm damage and have confirmed that two tornadoes touched down. One was an EF0 and the other an EF1.
11Alive’s Bill Liss and John Samuels are spending the day tracking the damage with Chief Meteorologist for the National Weather Service Keith Stellman and his staff.
Stellman reports that the damage in Haralson County is extensive but is a combination of straight line wind and tornado damage. The weather service says that when a powerful tornado crossed the Alabama line into Haralson County, Ga. it broke up and combined with straight line winds.
There is so much damage and debris in Haralson County that school leaders decided bus service would be impossible today, so they canceled classes.
Resident Dan Dupree described what it was like when the storm rolled in.
“It was windy, we heard the hail start,” he said.
The storm made quite an entrance on the way to Sarah and Frank McIntire’s home in Buchanan.
“It sounded like someone had literally set a bomb off in the bedroom. It was the tree landing. The tree dropped and shook the house,” Sarah said.
“The tree’s on the room of our bedroom, where we were standing.”
Two more trees fell a few doors down, trapping a father and daughter inside their home. They had to be rescued and rushed to the hospital but their injuries were not life-threatening.
Kasey Ray was working at Debra’s Fleet Oil last night and left just before this giant canopy collapsed.
“10 minutes later, I get a call that if fell down,” she said. “It’s kind of shocking.”
There were so many close calls as trees and power lines came crashing down. Haralson County 911 said they fielded more than 400 calls overnight.
Now, the priority is clean up.
by William Liss, Jennifer Leslie, Kristen Reed (11Alive)
Published: March 20, 2018
Updated: March 21, 2018
