SHEILA A. MATHEWS :::
A number of Griffin-Spalding County residents are cleaning up after storms damaged property early Monday afternoon.
As of early evening, no official determination had been made regarding what caused that damage.
“Nobody has confirmed that there actually was one (a tornado), but something went through over there around Herndon,” said Griffin Fire-Rescue Chief Tommy Jones. “It may have been a straight line wind, but I’m not sure. I haven’t talked to anyone with the Weather Service or anything like that.”
Jones said his personnel remained steadily busy throughout the afternoon and early evening responding to weather-related calls for service.
“We’re on about 21 (calls) it looks like. It’s been busy, but it could have been a lot worse,” Jones said. “Over there around Ellis Road, Herndon, Drury, Experiment – that area is where we had the most calls.”
He was grateful damage within the city of Griffin was not extreme.
“It was moderate damage – a few holes in roofs, siding torn off, trees that had to be cut up. It gave the community a little scare for a second there, but it turned out okay,” Jones said.
Spalding County Fire Department Chief Kenny West said he had also heard of no classification of Monday’s storm.
“The only thing I know for a fact is that they toned out it was a tornado warning,” said West, who also serves as director of the Spalding County Emergency Management Agency. “We don’t have any confirmation that a tornado touched down in Spalding County.”
West, who said the SCFD ran six weather-related calls, described countywide damage as moderate to severe.
“In some areas of the mill village, it was severe. We had a lot of big trees fall down in the mill village – Cedar Street was one of them,” he said. “There were some cars that had trees fall down and crush them, and damage to homes and then there is the power outage. That’s a lot of damage to the people who experienced those things.”
After assessing all city and county calls, Jones and West confirmed there were no injuries reported related to Monday’s storm.
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