As some of my followers know, I recently relocated back to Georgia to get away from a bad situation and be closer to family. Yesterday morning, my boyfriend & I were gonna go hiking but big droplets of rain started coming down and we'd heard the weather was gonna get "bad." So we didn't hike and just came back to my house and he went back to his house. By now, it was raining hard there were "noises" indicating not only a severe thunderstorm but something else, but I still was like "eh..." bad storm, whatever.
It's a known fact that animals can sense incoming severe storms or natural disasters. My cats were acting schizo and trying to hide. I had an urking feeling that it was more than just a t- storm. I got more than one Tornado alert on my phone at that point and others were getting more alerts than I received.
I live about 90 miles SW of Atlanta. This area has had tornadoes before. In fact, about a decade ago, there was a bad one right near where I now live that decimated a drug store and a fast food restaurant and damaged nearby neighborhoods. No deaths or injuries. Coincidentally, I was just sitting in a classroom taking a college final at that time because the school believed it was just a "bad storm."
So it goes to show unless you live in Kansas most people don't take tornado warnings seriously. Yes, the "weatherman" isn't always right but you should err on the side of caution anyway!
I like to nap when it's raining so I did. Meanwhile, a mere 2 miles up the road from me there WAS a tornado that destroyed most of my Mom's & her partners upper level. I woke up to nine missed calls. She was concerned about ME even though their neighbors had already told them their house was destroyed. I never even lost power, just a couple limbs down in the yard that I gotta pick up.
They were out of town and since the warning was over I hopped on the road to go assess damage and make sure my Mom would not have to come home to a dead cat (the cat was okay, just frightened.) What is normally a 5-8 minute drive took an hour of me going weird ways to try and get to their home due to power lines being down and multiple police blockades. Eventually I figured perhaps I could bypass all that by taking the interstate up and going the opposite direction down to their house. At that point I was also trying to tell them which way was the best way to go to get home since the police were blocking so many areas.
I got up in the driveway and it was surreal but not in a good way. Multiple trees on their house. There were valuable assets hidden in the attic that we thought were permanently gone. We dug through the rubbish in the first photo and found the most important one. It was nothing short of a miracle in my eyes. The upstairs office was unscathed and their bedroom had some damage but not too bad. It looked like a giant had taken a spear and rammed it through one wall, just missing their big bedroom TV!
They chose to sleep there last night as looting was a concern, despite being a seemingly safe rural neighborhood. Can't be too safe these days. I didn't know the storm blew open the front door because we never use that entrance but people (with good intentions I hope) had already been inside as there were muddy footprints in the basement.
My Mom's fine jewelery was OKAY!! She sent it with me for safe keeping as that house is not secure. Look at the magnitude of this storm...
That cedar was a very big & old tree that mostly took its wrath out on the house which softened the blow onto my Mother's car, which from my inspection I saw no broken glass or dents it's simply "resting" on her car.
Just the day prior I was there feeding her cat for her and washing some clothes. Less than 24 hours later, this all happened. Just the previous weekend, we had a nice dinner there with one of my siblings, his spouse, my mom and her partner of 10+ years.
Their pool was also damaged, with a tree in it.
The southbound side of the interstate had tons of trees on it. Luckily by the time I left, I didn't have to go that way as the police were letting people through the usual route that only takes 5-8 minutes.
I saw a lot of property damage and downed trees but no ones house was as badly damaged as theirs'. In fact the neighbor RIGHT across the street had no damage whatsoever. Which makes me realize I have no understanding of tornado "trajectories." Coincidentally, they were in florida working on their new sailboat. Why new? Because 2018's hurricane Michael destroyed their old one! My poor Mom and her bf cant catch a break from these storms it seems.
I had commissioned an artist friend of mine a few years back to paint a sailboat for them. I now call that painting "the little sail boat that could." It was located in the first photo.
I told the artist about it and was trying to be light so I said, "now you can market your paintings as tornado proof." Turns out this was her second piece that survived a tornado! It just had a few scuffs that are not really noticeable and attic dust, I cleaned it and it'll adorn their home once again soon as the insurance kicks in and rebuilds it.
I offered to let them stay at my house but they were concerned about looting and wanted to sleep in their own bed since as I mentioned it that room was mostly okay.
They would have been okay down in their basement, but I am relieved that they just flat out weren't there. Because I know if it was me I'd be like trying to move everything that was really special to me to the basement and probably get killed, going up and down fetching items. Mostly I would've just tried finding all three cats.
TLDR: Learn about how to be safe during natural disasters. Listen to local authorities if they alert the public to stay off the roads. Do not EVER take a tornado warning for granted.
Hope you're all well. Depending on the final payout of this post I'm gonna give some money to them for food, etc. Thanks for reading! Be safe & healthy!
