The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 1

ATLANTA CONSTI TUTION Inside Today Bob Harrcll 1 2-D Erma Bombeck 1 2B Business 7-D Good Health 7-B Celestine Sibley 3-B Movies. 8-B Comics, 2-C Sports 1-D Dear Abby 2-B Television Deaths 3-C Want Ads 4 For 106 Years the South" a Standard Newspaper TEN CENTS Price Higher Outside Retail Trading Zone VOL. 107, NO. 237 I. CK BOX 4689 ATLANTA, CA.

TUESDAY, MARCH 2S, 1975 r6 PAGES, 4 SECTIONS Bead. 7 1 kare and. rm A iaMa EBFt I-' 1 m-- t-rf 4 i 2 jrx-v'-jtv' I -t 's- Related stories and pictures on Pages By FREDERICK ALLEN and JIM STEWART A tornado danced a destructive path along eight miles of northwest Atlanta Monday, morning, killing three persons and injuring 117. Property damage was estimated in the millions of dollars, and the Atlanta Red Cross said some 1,000 persons were left homeless. A spokesman said Gov.

George Busbee will ask that Atlanta be declared a major disaster area to qualify for federal aid. The request is expected in "two or three days" after property damage has been gauged. According to available records, it was the worst tornado ever to bit Atlanta and is the secondever to cause a fatality within the city limits. The worst damage occurred at the Perry Homes housing project off Perry Boulevard and throughout the industrial area along Marietta Boulevard and Chattahoochee Avenue. One of the dead was identified as Arthur Harold Sausmer, 29, of 6703 Vicar Road, Doraville, who was killed when a two-story brick-and-concrete wall of the D.

Brinkman Co. collapsed on his late-model Lincoln. Sausmer, a self-employed carpet, dealer, was visiting the company at 1379 Logan Circle NW at the time. Mrs. Katherine B.

Hunken, 62, of 3175 Verdun Drive NW, was killed when an 80-' foot tree crashed into the bedroom where she was lying in bed with her husband, Walter B. Hunken. She was pronounced dead at West faces Ferry Hospital. Her husband was treated and released at Northside Hospital Officials said trie couple had to be. sawed out from under the tree.

Mark Anthony Howard, 26, of 2145 Bol-. ton Road NW, Apt. 7, was working at a Pepsi-Cola Co. vending warehouse at 1875 Plymouth Road NW when the roof and walls collapsed. His body was found crushed under the rubble in back of the warehouse.

Howard was pronounced dead at Grady Me- morial Hospital. Most of those injured were treated and released at local hospitals. Seven persons were reported admitted for treatment Mayor Maynard Jackson toured the hard-hit Perry Homes section and later called the damage "more severe than any natural crisis or disaster that we've had in the last six years and maybe longer." Jackson declared a state of emergency in the city, saying: "As far as I know, there is no cause for alarm, but since the city of Atlanta has been grievously affected by a tornado and heavy rainstorms, and substantial damage has occurred in a number of sections in the city, as mayor of Atlanta I hereby direct the city of Atlanta to be in a state of emergency." 1 Front Porch and Front Columns Were Completely Ripped Off Governor's Mansion AIR VIEW Below Acres of Heartbreak Huge power poles crashed into a building at Cross Creek Apartments, neatly bisecting it like a giant meat cleaver. Some nearby units were virtually untouched by the devastation. The walls are all in shambles at a building near the Southern Railway yards, leaving only a tall Coke machine standing like a solitary totem amid the destruction.

Everywhere you look there is wood, and it all looks wet. Some strange power picked out a 200 yard path in the silk-stocking district, de Atlanta Constitution reporter Jim Mer-riner surveyed tornado-ravaged areas of Atlanta from a helicopter Monday after-noon. Here is his report on the damage. The roofs have been- blown away, so from 120 feet your can peer down at unmade beds, upended bureaus and acres of heartbreak. People stand around and stare up at the helicopter The men in the helicopter stare down at the people.

Everyone is stunned. What meteorological lottery deqrees that this house will fall, but that house will clared "Death to all trees!" and snapped them all of fat mid-trunk. Naked wood lies all over the city-trees wantonly tossed across roads, roofs stripped of shingles and tar paper, building frames exposed and twisted like spaghetti But the storm was no more impressed by steel than by wood. At the railroad yard, trucks, railroad cars and steel buildings are destroyed. Gleaming new automobiles on the piggyback cars are ground into the mud, See VIEW, Page 14-A SMt PIxXo-BiIl Mihan SHE, THOUGHT HER FATHER WAS IN BUILDING Unidentified Woman in Chattahoochee Industrial Area See TORNADO, Page H-A A Gity in Criois: Hi lilllllW itfilllliiSBii Viz 1 I' tiiislissiMasi iiiiillll.

mmm lillBlSIl; mm immmmMm MARTA? ft "i Suit Phott-CilvH Cracc Roof Lifted Completely Off Perry Homes Apartment Building SOME SHELTERS EMPTY Busbee, Others Stay Home Third in a series. If. you were an invited guest to a ceremony on Feb. 19, 1975 'at the corner of Arizona and DeKalb Avenues, you received a gold-bordered certificate which read: "The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority certifies the holder of this document to be a participant in the official groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the Rapid Rail System, Arizona Avenue at DeKalb Avenue, Feb. 19, 1975." Signed "John E.

Wright, chairman, MARTA Board of Directors; Fred P. Meyer, vice-chairman, MARTA Board of Directors; Alan F. Kiepper, General Manager, MARTA. Later you were among 180 pests invited to board a MARTA bus to ride to downtown Atlanta to celebrate the occasion with cocktails and a roast beef luncheon at the exclusive Commerce Club. You may also have been on the invitation list that day for.

a black-tie dinner at the Fairmont Hotel. But that was cancelled after a former MARTA board member, Mitchell 'C. Bishop complained that such an affair would be "a display of ostentatious elitism." Your host for the day was MARTA. It picked up a $7,500 tab and signed, it over to the taxpayers. Look at that certificate again.

It may not mean much now. For MARTA, five weeks later, still has not officially or unofficially begun construction on its rapid rail system. Few agencies in local government demonstrate the changes in leadership, goals and. style in Atlanta in the past few years better than MARTA. A significant scene concerning MARTA was played out in January in the office of Mayor Maynard Jackson.

Several of his white political supporters gathered in the mayor's office to ask a favor. See CITY, Page 14-A By CHUCK BELL and JAY LAWRENCE Many Atlantans, including the governor of' Georgia, stayed in their tornado-stricken homes Monday night, leaving some emergency shelters wanting for clients. Relief officials said there seemed to' be two reasons for people to remain home: either they wanted to protect their property against looting or they did not know free shelter was available. Gov. George Busbee and his family elected to stay at the governor's mansion after a portable generator supplied power and the damaged sections of the $2.5 million dwelling were covered with plastic sheets and tarpaulins.

Some parents sent their children to Red Cross shelters while the adults remained home. However, Atlanta police reported no major incidents of looting in any of the damaged areas. Officers patroled the streets, and ordered citizens indoors in lieu of a general curfew which Maynard and Public Safety Commissioner Reginald Eaves' decided was unnecessary. Police blockaded streets in the areas damaged heavily by the tornado and turned away everyone approaching those areas, even the owners and private security guards. Emergency shelters went wanting for customers in the affluent northside neighborhoods, where the residents either stayed home or rented a room for-the night.

Northside High School, one shelter, was virtually unused and stockpiles of, clothing and blankets remained untouched. However, Archer High School, another' Red Cross emergency shelter, was bustling withc- See DARK, Page l-A fi I- -'K 'jflnssMBtev- ft SUUPMc-BiUlbhaa.