A sign that used to be in front of Bethel Baptist, a small church in the town of West Point right on the Alabama state line, read, “Where hope abides.”
Although the church is now in ruins, its steeple gone and its roof caved in, neighbors in the area struck a hopeful tone after a tornado destroyed most of the houses and buildings around the intersection of West Point Road and First Avenue. Many of those picking through the destroyed buildings were actually grateful that things hadn’t been worse.
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Ben Gray
Credit: Henri Hollis
Credit: Henri Hollis
David Bennett, a lifelong resident of the area, said he was thankful his mother was all right and that he was at work when the storm hit.
“My house is intact a little bit,” he said. “I have clothes I can get out of here.”
Relatives helped Bennett’s mother pack up an SUV with essentials before heading to his grandmother’s house in LaGrange. Bennett elected to stick around the devastated area to see if any of his neighbors needed his help.
A radar-confirmed tornado struck just before 8 a.m. Sunday. Five people were injured but no one was killed despite winds strong enough to uproot trees, flip cars and rip down buildings. Surveyors with the National Weather Service have given the storm a preliminary EF3 rating as they continue to look for damage in neighboring counties.
Troup County has been hit hard with severe weather in recent months. Sunday’s tornado in West Point came through about six weeks after a confirmed EF1 hit less than 20 miles northeast in LaGrange.
Up and down West Point Road, residents, neighbors and helpers picked through the wreckage of homes as Red Cross volunteers took an accounting of the damage, lot by lot. Some houses were completely scraped away by the violent winds, leaving behind only a rectangle of cinderblocks on the ground to show where a house once stood.
A shop just up the street from the church, West Point RV Center, had its metal garage doors blown away. The sheets of corrugated metal were wrapped around the business’ sign and a telephone pole like tissue paper, and they remained in place through Monday afternoon.
“They were doing good business,” Bennett said with a shake of his head.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Married couple Johnny and Janet Mann said the worst of the storm missed them by about a half-mile, but they had come to help a friend whose house was seriously damaged. From the driveway, a huge hole in the side of the house gaped open, showing the haphazard contents of the master bedroom.
“You look at his house and the amazing thing is, he called us to see if we were doing OK,” Johnny Mann said of his friend.
A carport and shed had once stood on the property, according to Mann, but little evidence of those structures still existed. As the Manns spoke about the ordeal, linemen restrung power lines above their heads. New telephone poles had already been dropped off alongside the road. A Red Cross van full of supplies was distributing water, and more disaster relief trucks could be seen driving in.
Just hours after the storm swept through, the recovery was already beginning.
While there was good news to be found in the destruction, Janet Mann took umbrage with some social media commentary from outside their tight-knit community.
“I’ve seen on Facebook people joking about the tiger-nado coming through,” she said, referencing the storm-damaged Pine Mountain Animal Safari in the area where a tiger briefly escaped Sunday morning. The tiger was recaptured about two hours later.
Despite the online insensitivity, West Point has the attention and support of many other Georgia residents. The area was teeming with news trucks from Georgia and Alabama, and Gov. Brian Kemp arrived Monday afternoon to survey the damage himself.
“We’ve had a great state and local response,” Kemp told reporters during a news conference in the area. “Thankfully, which is a miracle, when you view the damage that’s all around us, we have not had a fatality.”
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Bennett, the local man who was at work early Sunday morning when the storm hit, said he was ready to start over after so many of his possessions were damaged or destroyed. His mother’s Kia, which he said was relatively new, had been flipped into the side of their blue clapboard house.
“I feel bad for everybody in this neighborhood, but I can’t feel bad for myself,” Bennett said.
He planned to head to his grandmother’s home after helping clean up, and he said he had been given the week off from work.
“I put my family first and I’m blessed because my house is still there,” Bennett said. “But all these other people, they don’t have nothing. So I can’t be too mad.”
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