please check in after Atlanta storm - much damage

[motorgypsy]

Please check in Sandy and GregM, Don Primrose, Mel, Boyd, CindyG and the rest of our Atlanta friends! We hope you and your critters are fine. Stay safe!
Last night a major storm hit down town Atlanta and did so much damage they had to cancel the St. Paddy's day parade that several of us rode in last year and move the SEC tournament to GA tec which means most ticket holders won't be able to attend because the new arena has a much smaller capacity. Many residents are without power right now. They had additional bad weather this morning with a tornado warning for part of the Atlanta area.

Additional storm due in Atlanta area about 3pm could be much worse than they've already had.

[Heidi]

All good here, about 40mi East of Atlanta. We received severe T-storms last night and early this morning with a few rumbles south of us in the afternoon, with wind, rain and hail, but periods of no wind and sunshine. The afternoon storms slid south of us.

[DebJ]

My daughter lives near Marietta. She is fine, but they had the siren go off a few days ago. But she actually had to go downtown tonight as she is working with a few people at a wedding reception dinner at the Weston Hotel. (They are photograghers) We talked about 5pm and she said the lady's hubby had actually gotten into town and parked in the hotel lot. She was not too happy about having to go, a little nervous about it all. This hotel is only a few blocks, I believe, from CNN. So I am now waiting --at midnight--for her to call and let me know she got home ok. They were still calling for major storms this evening, but to be more south of where she was. I was just surprised they were able to get into town at all.
She works downtown too, so she may get to see more on Monday.
Hope everyone is OK!!
I talked with my daughter and they were all fine and got home ok. The bride and groom actually were nice enough to give them a little extra money for their having come, so that was thoughtful of them. She said most of the glass and debris have been cleaned up off the roads, but alot of streets were still closed. The Westin has sky lights, and they had yellow caution tape in the area so you could not go under them. So all went well. Those poor people who are getting married tomorrow must have been frantic !!

[lalecl]

Spoke to SandyMM this am and was told storm went well north of theam and they are fine.

[SandyMM]

The worst of the storms were north of us.... we are located close to that little 'notch' on the west central side of Georgia along the state line. We did have some pretty strong winds all day yesterday and Greg was working in Roswell, NE of Atlanta, which was under tornado warnings for a period of time.... Dare I say I hate spring (tornado) time in the South? :frown:

[motorgypsy]

Boyd and CindyG are to the north I think. I hope they're OK.

How about Mary Bailey's family? She has several in the Atlanta area???

How pasoglide? Isn't she near Atlanta?

[pasoglide]

MG's thanks for asking about me . No I'm not near Atlanta , I'm closer to Florida .

[Mellifluous]

We had some pretty nasty storms and were under a tornado warning for much of the afternoon. We spent about an hour in the basement at my FIL's (next door) when they were saying that there were probable tornadoes coming toward us.

In the end we had lots of rain and lots of limbs down but everyone was OK. My barn flooded and it a gross mess so I will have a fun project when it dries back out.:rolleyes:

[motorgypsy]

Glad to hear from you Mel. We were starting to get worried!

[pnalley]

I'm one hour south of the Airport. We didin't get any rain, lightning or winds. The storms were well north of us.

Has anyone heard from Cindy?

[Heidi]

Boyd lives about 20mi West of me, approx 20mi East of Atlanta. He should have gotten a boat-load of rain and winds, but I am curious to know if he is okay, too.

[motorgypsy]

Glad to hear from you Paula and that you and yours are fine.

Our son is north of Atlanta and didn't even know there was bad weather.

We're 150 miles away and we had a deluge yesterday and a couple of days ago a big pine was uprooted and is leaning on two other trees. We need the rain but I could do without the wind.

We also used to have quite a number of tornadoes in this area. Hurricanes don't bother me but I'm totally terrified of tornadoes. It's like an alien with a giant vacuum cleaner is just sucking up victims at random. You have almost no warning.:frown:

[LynnG]

Glad everyone is okay there. I heard it was bad. We had one of those bad storms also...where the doppler showed "black" and purple...with a tornado sighting 20 minutes and 50 mph straight gale-force winds south of me near Sanford, NC. It's predicted path was northeast, and we were just on the edge of the path, and just got alot of rain, thank goodness.

[Mellifluous]

Anyone know how to get in contact with Cindy or Boyd. I know Cindy's area had some tornadoes skipping around. I hope they are OK.

I was at the Westin Hotel in downtown Atlanta Friday night. I had been there for a few days attending a conference. We were at the closing reception Friday night and decided to leave early. On the way home, we heard the tornado warning for Fulton County. I am very glad that my co-worker and I decided to split early.

[Heidi]

I had Boyd's phone number but I just looked for it and cannot find it. It was in a packet of information he sent me several years ago and I cannot find that envelope. He is not listed in my Walton County phone book.

[paintedhorizon]

Aiken County, SC, where Stella, Hastflicka and I all live was hit hard. 3 tornadoes touched down not even 5 miles from my house. Stella, other than flooding, is fine. Haven't heard from Hast.

Not even a mile up the road a tornado touched down and less than 1/4 of a mile down, a huge tree fell through a house. After church, we took the long way home and there are poiwer poles snapped in half, lots and I mean LOTS of trees in houses and trailers. Sheds where they shouldn't be.

We got lucky, only destroyed my outdoor swing and big shade umbrella. Completely twisted. But that is MINOR compared to the rest.

Here's an article with some pictures.
http://chronicle.augusta.com/stories/031608/met_191230.shtml

Oh, and I am 2 minutes from Clearwater, if you read the article. And Cherokee Road is where the bigger tornado hit. That's the road we drove down today. If you watch the video, that's Cherokee Road. Jefferson Davis Hwy, Pine Street, those are all roads that are less than 2 miles from me. Actually, all those roads in the video (I'm on dialup, so watching it sporadically) are in the same area less than 2 miles from me. Like I said, I was extremely lucky. There was one point, I was changing Jacob's diaper, and I thought I'd heard something loud, asked Jason, because I've never been in a tornado, and he said no, it wasn't loud enough. Now we know it was a tornado, just not near us. Bath, SC is approximately 4 miles down the road. They have had that road shut off since the storms. Now I know why (video). They had an 8pm curfew last night because of all the looting.

[motorgypsy]

That was a seriously bad system. Glad you guys are fine. Really scary!

[Cindy]

Thanks for worrying about us. I was out of town this weekend. We had some strong storms here and a lot of rain. But no problems. Thanks.

[motorgypsy]

Glad to hear it. Very nasty storm.

[Boyd R]

We are Ok. Washed up four of the boys to do the St. Paddy's day Parade Friday night and put them in the barn to stay clean. Seen the news as the tornado hit dowtown. Then of to sleep. Numberous calls through the middle of the night that went to voice mail just as I would answer. Woke up Saturday morning to see circulation on the radar just minutes away. So ran outside with to let the horses out as it was a dead calm out. But nothing came of it.

Now off to find the beeeeoooootchhhhh that stiffed me for $4,700 dollers of Timothy hay.

[motorgypsy]

Glad you and yours are fine. I was just thinking about the parade a couple of days ago and how much we enjoyed it other than the wind and cold. I'd really like to do it again but glad we didn't even consider it this year.

Sorry about the hay. Did you ship and deliver it to someone or did they just not pick it up? I know you can sell it with hay being as scarce as it is. We moved all our horses to Florida because it's so scarce up here in SC. It's expensive there but a lot easier to get. Hope you collect quickly and painlessly.