February 18, 2008
Thomasville-- In the light of day, the damage from Sunday night's storm was even more shocking. Around 3 a.m., the storm woke 88-year-old Rosaline Mills. "Oh it was just this roar. Whew, the most terrible sound you'd ever heard. Just roar," Mills describes.
Home alone, she headed for safety as quickly as she could. "I prayed all the way to the bathroom to save me. And by the time I got to the bathroom it was all done and gone. All over."
Her neighbor David James, a volunteer fire fighter came to check on her just after the storm. He says,"She's the oldest person out here in this neighborhood. We came at the door and knocked and saw her, and thought thank God she's ok. That was a breath of relief."
Amazingly Mills survived without a scratch, despite the severe damage to her home and the trees around it. That's the story on several of the small roads off of Highway 93.
One mobile home had just been moved to a lot on Saturday. During the storm Sunday night it was flipped upside down. Fortunately no one lived there yet. "No one actually, no one was hurt. So that's our main concern. Everybody's lives were spared," says Grady County Sheriff, Harry Young.
Rosayln Senn's family gathered at the house where she lives alone, grateful she's ok. "I got to the hall and the bedroom windows blew out and it knocked me down. And then the tree came down on the house," Senn explains.
While the National Weather Service has yet to confirm the storm as a tornado, that doesn't stop the talk around here. "Wind wouldn't have gone in a path like it did and dipped down like it did. So it had to be a tornado, no doubt in my mind it was a tornado," Young says.
In the aftermath of the storm, Senn says the quick response from emergency workers made all the difference. "It wasn't long and my God they were everywhere out here. And they immediately got the tree off the house and checked the inside of the house," Senn says. Their help, and help from other sources will continue throughout the next several days until the clean-up is complete.
The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Tallahassee will send a survey crew to the area tomorrow to determine if it was a tornado.
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