Overnight tornadoes spared life in metro Atlanta, unlike neighbors to the northwest, but still downed trees and power lines and left thousands temporarily without power.
The National Weather Service suspects the only tornado that hit the metro area was a twister that touched down in Fulton County early Monday, running along the border of College Park and East Point.
“We always wait to have results from a survey before we say anything with certainty,” NWS forecaster Katie Martin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It looked pretty mean on the radar.”
Surveying will take place even amid the COVID-19 pandemic that is causing many to stay indoors.
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Martin said the Fulton tornado was far from the worst seen on the radar. As of Monday afternoon, several people had been found dead in northwest counties and Gov. Brian Kemp had declared a state of emergency. Martin said the tornadoes were caused by "fairly unprecedented" levels of wind shear, which gave the rotation needed to turn a nasty storm into a tornado.
North Fulton cities had downed trees but missed the worst. In southern Fulton, the tornado made landfall about 2:40 a.m. and continued northeast, Martin said.
Radars showed lots of material that wasn’t water whipping around, she said, including things like tree limbs and lawn chairs.
In Decatur, Emma Ceplina was startled awake at 2 a.m. by her husband, Jared Shugart, as wind lashed their townhouse near Belvedere Park. Ceplina, originally from the Midwest, didn’t hear the signature roaring train sound she knows a twister makes on the ground. But Shugart decided to check out where the noise was coming from.
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As he moved closer to the couple’s guest bedroom, he smelled rain and soil. He discovered a tree had crashed through the roof.
“I remember all I could say was, ‘Oh my God’,” Ceplina told The AJC. The uninjured couple spent the rest of the night camped out in their living room on the lower level of their home.
Now that they’ve been able to assess the damage in the daylight, Ceplina said she has been in touch with her landlord to figure out their next move.
She said it is fortunate the tree landed on their home because her neighbors all have children. She’s glad no one was hurt or worse, but bad news seems to be compounding these days.
“It’s another hard pill to swallow in a year made up of hard pills,” she said.
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