Tornadoes and Hail Savage Georgia--Trees Blown Flat

Tornadoes, thunderstorms and pounding hail ripped through northern Georgia on Tuesday, injuring several people, damaging dozens of homes and businesses and knocking out electrical service to thousands of residents.

One reported tornado raced through northern Cobb and southern Cherokee counties, touching down along Highway 92 in Woodstock and at a Lake Allatoona mobile home park.

Dave Finkel, a technician at the Highway 92 Animal Hospital in Kennesaw, said the storm bent trees “at 45- to 90-degree angles. Then the rain came and it was like someone was throwing big buckets of water at the windows.

‘Looked Like a Bomb Hit’

“I called my dad, who lives in the Lake Forest subdivision near here, and he said it looked like a bomb hit,” Finkel said. “He said there were so many trees down you can’t get in or out of the subdivision.”

A roof was torn off a nearby auto body shop, he said.

Forecasters said winds estimated at 85 m.p.h. to 100 m.p.h. uprooted trees, overturned mobile homes and blew down power lines throughout northern Georgia.

Pounding hail that turned streets and roads treacherous in seconds later piled up beside interstate highways “like snow,” one observer said.

Several northern Georgia hospitals reported treating people injured in the storms, and the heavy rain caused several multiple-vehicle wrecks.

Georgia Power Co. reported power knocked out to at least 26,000 customers in various counties, most of them in Cobb County, where a major transmission line was down.

The National Weather Service in Atlanta reported that the first tornado touched down in the northern Floyd County community of Cave Spring, just outside Coosa. Tornadoes were reported around Atlanta, and much of the state was placed under a tornado watch.

“Several homes were damaged, but as far as we know there were no injuries,” a Floyd County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.