Atlanta storms

[jdmetzger]

I caught the news this morning and saw some video from the storms (tornado) that went through Atlanta - lots of damage downtown. Are all of our Atlanta-based members doing A-OK? Anyone from down there (or visiting) experience any really bad parts of that storm?

Isn't Visian from down that way? :uhoh

[6659]

I live in Woodstock, just 20 mile from downtown. I spent several hours watching the local stations to see where the path of the storms would go. They hit downtown last night and today they seemed to follow Ga. Hwy 20 from west to east. Tomorrow, Sunday, I hope to take a ride following the path and see just how bad it was. We have been very lucky in that it missed us by at least a mile. By all the reports I heard, with all the new computerized weather devices they have, everyone was well informed and very few injuries were reported. There were 2 deaths though. One woman was sucked from her house and found 400 yards away!

They had mentioned that the only other time recorded that a tornado came close to Atlanta was in 1975 when it hit the governor's mansion in Buckhead. I just happen to be there at that time and still have some photos of the damage.

[Visian]

we're up in NC.

got hail on the atlanta house, but no damage, according to son...

ian

[jkirsch]

Thanks for asking.
We live 5 miles north of city center, and it was quite a night. We have a condo on the 11th floor, and the building did get a direct lightning strike - but isn't too unusual.

I ventured downtown on Saturday (I was passing passing through on MARTA and decided to check things out), and the destruction was amazing. Many of the streets and sidewalks were closed, as the danger of falling glass remained. Still, I could see many, many blown-out windows, and it seems like every building around Woodruff Park had some damage. Metal strips of the facade on the Equitable Building were missing (it's a modern high-rise), exposing the metal and concrete beneath. The historic Candler Building had a lot of broken windows, but I could see no damage to the beautiful carved stone facade - then again, I couldn't get very close to it.

Cranes are everywhere, and there was a very large HVAC piece on a tractor trailer bed awaiting a crane ride to a rooftop. I saw lots of engineer types conferring outside of various buildings, and workers were already busy with repairs and damage control.

Very large, heavy pieces of metal still littered the street, and the fact that no one was struck by one of these is truly amazing. Interestingly, the oldest buildings appeared to suffer the least - I guess they did make things better in the olden days (and this is an oilhead owner writing).

I got caught in yet another wave of nasty weather while shooting photos, at about 4:00 p.m. Even with a raincoat and an umbrella I was soaked. Umbrellas are no good when the rain is coming at you sideways. Then the hail came, which is always a concern. I ducked into a doorway of the Peachtree Plaza Hotel for shelter - talk about irony - it was heavily damaged the night beforehand and had been cleared of inhabitants.

I have a friend in Cabbagetown, a historic neighborhood south east of the central business district that was heavily damaged by the storm. I have not been able to get in touch with him yet, and his street lost several houses, but I haven't seen his home in the news, so I take that as a good sign.

Jeff

[The_Veg]

Damage ran past my dad's house on both sides but missed him. He lives about 2.5 miles ESE of downtown.