Atlanta tornado: Forecasters confirm EF-1 touchdown near Six Flags

A QuikTrip is closed off Mableton Parkway after a piece of roofing fell into the roadway.

Credit: RAISA HABERSHAM/RAISA.HABERSHAM@AJC.COM

Credit: RAISA HABERSHAM/RAISA.HABERSHAM@AJC.COM

A QuikTrip is closed off Mableton Parkway after a piece of roofing fell into the roadway.

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a strong EF-1 tornado did touch down in Cobb County during the Wednesday storms that downed trees, power lines and put a roof in a roadway.

The tornado touched down near Delta Circle Southeast, which is in an industrial area about a mile away from Six Flags Over Georgia, said Ryan Willis, NWS forecaster.

He said the tornado was 100 yards wide, gusted up to 100 mph and moved three-quarters of a mile northeast. That means the storm was 11 mph shy of becoming an EF-2.

The most significant damage in that area was to roofs and metal wall panels hit by debris along with poles knocked sideways, he said.

In Alpharetta, a weaker EF-0 storm touched down along Windward Parkway east of Ga. 400, Willis said.

"So far it looks like the tornadoes we have were short-lived with short paths and the damage was relatively limited," he said. "It definitely could have been worse with a stronger tract."

The agency has two crews out looking for storm damage throughout Cobb and north Fulton counties. He said at about 1:30 p.m. that one group was heading to assess damage in Banks County.

Neither Marietta City Schools nor Cobb County School District at the time reported effects from the storm and haven't released anything showing any.

Video courtesy of WSB-TV by Jonathan Garner.

Three people were killed in a northeast Alabama mobile home, Jackson County Chief Deputy Rocky Harmen told The Associated Press.

A firefighter with a volunteer fire department in Bloomingdale, Georgia, and his wife were two of the three people killed Wednesday in Tennessee because of the storm.