The winter weather that hit North Georgia caused thousands of people to lose power Sunday morning.
Georgia Power reported more than 12,000 customers without power as of noon Sunday. Many of the outages are in the northeast corner of the state, which saw snow and other winter weather.
In metro Atlanta, cold rain and wind caused downed trees and power lines.
The severe weather caused a tree to uproot and crash into a house in unincorporated DeKalb County. Turad Garba, his wife Halima and their 1-year-old daughter Fatimah were awakened about 2:30 a.m. to sounds of splitting wood and flying debris.
“The tree fell on the roof near the front door,” Garba said. “The damage didn’t happen all at once. It kept gradually falling.”
The damage was so severe that the family had to call DeKalb fire to make sure they could get out.
“The structure is so unstable now, we were afraid it would collapse,” Garba said.
As they waited for emergency workers, they packed a few essentials, but they can’t go back into the house until it is deemed safe.
They checked into a nearby hotel and plan to have insurance adjusters assess the damage as soon as possible.
“They told us to call back on Monday morning — they don’t work on weekends,” Garba said.
The house, built in 1963, is surrounding by mature pines.
The house belongs to his father-in-law, Sayyed Maisikeli, who lives in Dubai.
“Every time there’s a storm we talk about cutting down some trees,” said Garba. “We shouldn’t have put it off.”
Several streets in Sandy Springs were also closed due to the downed lines.
Big Creek near Alpharetta and the Yellow River in eastern DeKalb County are under flood warnings.
In Cobb County, a large tree fell on a home on Weatherstone Parkway.
Channel 2 Action News meteorologist Brian Monahan warned that wind and ice accumulation could topple trees.
Temperatures in North Georgia were barely above freezing Sunday morning.
In the counties where the bulk of the wintry weather hit, residents woke up to slushy roads that were being treated by Georgia Department of Transportation crews.
“Please exercise extreme caution this morning if you are planing to be out and about in the community,” the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on Facebook, citing reports of downed trees caused by winds and wet soil.
The sheriff’s office also said streets near Jasper were icy thanks to the precipitation.
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