Cleanup is in full force today along Old Wax Road where a tornado struck Saturday.
Scotty Hancock, Floyd County EMA director, said Home Depot has donated $9,000 in equipment. Floyd County Public works crews are helping with tree removal and volunteers from Berry College are also on the scene to lend their aid. The Floyd County Baptist Association is also on the scene, Hancock said.
EMA officals are still keeping the general public out of the area for safety reasons, Hancock said.
The devastation from Saturday’s storm wasn’t immediately obvious to anyone driving down Wax Road, passing Flint Hill Baptist Church and turning left onto Old Wax Road in southeastern Floyd County on Sunday morning.
But after passing Brumbelow Road and going down the hill on Old Wax, the scope and severity of the damage became painfully obvious. In the Old Wax Road community, lives and homes were destroyed and changed forever in a few brief minutes early Saturday afternoon.
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A tornado ripped through Floyd, Polk and Bartow counties, leaving an eerie trail of destruction, completely destroying several homes and seriously damaging others.
Two people — Jerry Paul Albers, 71, of 433 Old Wax Road, and Bonnie Turner of Live Oak Road, north of Aragon — were killed. Bonnie Turner’s husband, Mike, was at Erlanger Medical Center, in Chattanooga, Tenn., Sunday with arm, ankle, lower back and internal injuries, a family friend said.
The Turners raised American hairless terriers, but not all of their dogs have been found or accounted for. One sobering sight for witnesses Sunday was a small utility trailer carrying the carcasses of several dogs.
All along Old Wax Road were uprooted trees, crushed mailboxes, roof shingles and debris.
“After taking an aerial view of the area, it was determined that it was an F-3 tornado on the Enhanced Fujita Scale and produced 150-mph winds,” said Lans Rothfusz, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. “It was about a seven-and-a-half mile path, and it touched down all the way.
“The storm had a mix of all the right ingredients — a warm-front boundary not moving, some heating and the wind profile was just right.”
“It was very comparable to some tornado damage I’ve seen in Oklahoma before,” said Rothfusz.
Emergency management officials, law enforcement personnel, public work crews and friends and neighbors helped the hardest-hit families recover on a sunny, cool Palm Sunday morning. Crews with chainsaws and heavy equipment removed trees that had fallen across yards, roads and houses, while workers and volunteers helped put tarps over damaged roofs.
Families and friends were sifting through the rubble of many destroyed homes, hunting valuables and keepsakes.
Ginny Wilder drove up from Atlanta to see the damage to the homes of her extended family, many of whom grew up and lived on Old Wax Road.
“It’s just awful isn’t it?” Wilder said, standing in front of her aunt’s house, a massive oak tree across the driveway. “That was my Aunt Nan’s house and my uncle’s house was next to it. There were some fruit trees in an orchard between them and these old oak trees in front. It looks just terrible now.”
Wilder said her family members who still live on the road were all safe, but many of the homes had major damage.
“I went in one house and you could see all the rain damage. Part of the wet ceiling fell in,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of tornado damage before, but there’s nothing like seeing it in person.
“You see the houses, and all the memories of the good times you’ve had there flash before your eyes,” she added. “You realize you’ll never have those again, at least not in those homes.”
Sgt. James Davenport of the Georgia State Patrol was helping with Sunday’s relief efforts, and he was thankful his family was safe after seeing Saturday’s twister with his own eyes.
“I had put my family in the basement and I had gone to a nearby house to get a grandmother and get her to safety,” Davenport said. “I turned and heard the loud roar and knew we had to get out of there immediately. I ran around to the front of the house and saw the tornado behind one house, just to the left of where my family was.
“It’s like you’re in shock — you wonder ‘what do I do?’” he added. “Once I got my family to safety, I started to get out and check on some other families. It’s just a helpless feeling, seeing something of that magnitude. It was just unbelievable. You hear about it and what it’s like, but then it’s right there …”
A command post was set up again Sunday at the Flint Hill church at the corner of Morris and Wax roads, where law enforcement and emergency agencies coordinated clean up and relief efforts.
Michael Dills, who lives a few miles down on Wax Road, stopped by the command center, offering to help in any way he could.
“It was a blessing that our family wasn’t hurt, and as our preacher has said, as Christians we need to be the first ones out there to help people when they need it,” Dills said. “I know that if I was in that situation, it would make all the difference in the world if someone came to help me.”
Also offering help and condolences was 11th District U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, who toured the tornado-stricken areas Sunday.
“I’m really here to just let the families know that if there’s anything that I can do at the federal level that I am available,” the congressman said.
He credited the victims’ strong religious faith with helping them cope with their losses and he marveled at the way neighbors and friends had pitched in to help out.
“These are good people and they know that life goes on and they’ll rebuild. I am amazed by the strength they have,” he added. “This just goes to show you that people pull together. They get out here with their chainsaws and their tractors and (do) whatever they can do.”
Click here for a previous story and links to maps, more storm-related headlines, photos and video coverage.
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Contributing to this report were staffers Lindsay Field and William T. Martin.
