March 5, 2007
Dougherty County - Hundreds of trees snapped like twigs. Carports and roof shingles ripped off homes in Dougherty County, but people in the county actually were lucky. What damage there was is being cleaned up tonight.
The damage in Dougherty County was concentrated in one area, just off County Line Road in the Jenkins Road area. "I don't ever want to experience this again," says Diana Scott. She lives on Jenkins.
Diana says she went to bed around 9:30 Thursday night thinking the worst of the storm was over. That's when her NOAA weather radio went off. "I said, 'let's get to the bathroom.'"
She huddled into the bathroom with her family and prayed. She said, "It sounded like toothpicks just breaking and then the windows started busting out. We started praying real hard then."
Looking through the aftermath, Diana says she's really quite lucky. "There's the carport in the tree." The carport is gone, but not her home, not her family. Dougherty County Police Chief Don Cheek says, "The amazing thing with the physical and structural damage, we had no injuries."
Andy Maderis says he was following the storm on TV and moved his family to the hallway. "By the time I got in the hallway," says Andy, "you could here the trees and it sounded like hail damage." When asked if he felt fortunate he said "Very. I was scared. Very scared."
Chief Cheek says, "We were extremely fortunate. We had a limited area that was directly impacted." Scott adds, "it was close, we knew it was close, but I think the hand of God just came down and covered the end of this neighborhood."
A neighborhood that's picking up the pieces and praying for those where the damage was worse.
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