Tornado in Atlanta?

March 18, 2008 | News, Tim

For all of those who have written or called to check on us, thank-you very much for your concern. The “historic” Tornado of Friday night that struck Atlanta did miss our office and since most of us either live out of town or were out of town no personal of Capture Integration was directly affected.

It was not far away… these photos were taken from the street in front of our office….

The affected area started about one mile from us and headed away from our building…. which I might add, our office is on floor 1 & 2 of a stout 3 story brick and steel building. More photos after the jump.

(it takes a lot of huffing and puffing to blow this down)

The storm came through late Friday night… I live 50 miles outside of Atlanta out in the country. At my house we had thunderstorms blast through, lots of lighting and a little rain. Honestly, I was watching a movie and did not pay any attention to the weather. On Saturday morning my Dad stopped by for a visit, “Did your office get hit?”… hit by what I asked, he told me of the tornado, I turned the local news on and at that time thought Sherman had decided to march back through Atlanta. Weary eyed news people told of the destruction and — thankfully — how lucky we were with no causalities. Although I checked the news from time to time the rest of the weekend, I began to notice the same photos and video clips were being shown over and over and decided the worse had been reported on.

Monday morning, the radio blared with traffic back ups and closed roads, Atlanta is famous for bad drivers and bad traffic but with the road closings of the affected areas it was unusually bad for some. Warnings to stay out of the affected areas keep us in our office but today, Tuesday, I ventured out to see and photograph some of the damage.

My first stop was at the historic Oakland Cemetery… they would not let me in due to the damage, 86 of the giant oak trees had been severely damaged or destroyed, noticing my camera the guard let me enter in about 5o feet past the gate where I was able to grab a couple of shots. Above is the main entrance… below, one of the grand trees.

I traveled a couple of blocks down the street and surveyed the damage on the back side of the cemetery….

Blue tarps outlined the path the storm took, news vans, utility trucks lined the roads, most areas were blocked to keep non-essential people out, on the street corner where I stood I noticed the stop sign had been twisted. Across the street at an appliance store a series of refrigerators mimicked the way most of the locals felt.

As I headed back toward our office I circled around to try and see a little of the other side.

That wasn’t as easy as you might think… road blocks changed many of my intended routes. As I headed back to the office I drove through the downtown area.

The most interesting thing I saw was that outside of the immediate damaged areas, life was back to normal, spring is showing itself in Atlanta with the constant construction our city has, people are use to the inconveniences and get back into routines fast.

I certainly feel for and support those that experienced damage from the storm, however with that being said I believe our beloved media may have “blown” this event (in Atlanta) a little out of proportion. Many of the areas hit have been cleaned up and repaired, only the most damaged still display evidence the “historic” tornado stopped by for a visit. Sadly, north of Atlanta a second twister did touch down in a somewhat rural area picking out several of the few houses that even exist in the area. Destroying those homes (much like a bomb blast) there was lost of life in at least one home.

Thanks again for those who inquired about our safety.

Tim