Friday night Teresa and I went to a Ballroom Dancing event sponsored by Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. Teresa asked me what the weather forecast was and I told her "nothing is expected until Saturday". Boy, was I WRONG!!! We left the dancing event a little early (it was too crowded to dance much unfortunately) and it was raining a little. As we were driving home Teresa pointed out some significant fast moving clouds that contained a a huge lightning storm off to the south. It was a beautiful sight but we did not realize at the time what that storm was doing to downtown.
It was 9:38 pm and at that moment a tornado was ripping through the heart of Atlanta, right where we had just watched the Rockets/Hawks game at Philips Arena two nights earlier.
The weather action started up again early Saturday morning but this time it was in the north side of Atlanta, right through Cherokee County. I was awakened around 5:30 am with a start by some thunder. I got up and went down to our sun room to sleep (I love the sound of thunder and the rain on the roof in that room). That storm lasted about 30 minutes and contained a lot of lightning, thunder and some heavy, heavy rain. After that storm I slept a little more and then got up to run some errands before the next storm arrived.
Around noon the next storm hit with a vengeance. Teresa and I were watching the newscast of the overnight storms when the Fox weather guy said that 'dangerous storms are forming in Paulding county and heading east/northeast. He showed warnings for rotating thunderstorms containing possible tornadoes and they were pointing right at our area!! A few minutes later we heard the tornado sirens going off all around us. That is an eerie sound!! The storm blew through quickly and the worst of it went just a mile or so north of us. An hour or so later another big storm headed our way and it was quick and violent just like the other one, but no warnings.
Teresa and I decided to run some quick errands between storms so we went to Publix. The kid working the checkout counter said that that the strom that just blew through there contained golf ball size hail. We finished our tasks and headed home, dark clouds brewing on the horizon.
A little later yet another storm blew through and the warning sirens went off again. Teresa and I heard a loud 'whooshing' sound and looked out the window to see pea size hail bouncing off the deck. The basement door was open and we were ready to run if necessary!! The rain was intense and the wind was blowing hard up on the hill but our house is a little protected because we are down at the base of a hill. Our little creek, however, was a raging 4-5 wide river of muddy water for a little while. We've lived here 2 years and it has barely rained so that was a new sight for us.
One final storm came through about an hour later then the sun came out.
Sunday dawned a cool and perfect day and we are thankful to have made it through a wild, wild Saturday without any problems.
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