The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 7

NEWS Monday, November 23, 199? STORMS OVER. GEORGIA Georgia's devastating Sunday was spawned high over west Texas days ago By Charles Salter STAFF WRITER While metro Atlantans enjoyed sunny, breezy weather Friday and grumbled about a possibly rainy weekend, they didn't realize that devastation was' being spawned in the skies over west Teas. Georgia was destined to be clobbered by violent weather Sunday be- ciase moist, warm air from the Gulf of xico met up here with the band of intake thunderstorms from Texas, pushed into the region by a strong cold front On Friday, easterly winds were pulling moisture off the Atlantic; then, on Saturday, the wind shifted, pulling moist and even warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico, the two air masses met above Atlanta early Sunday, and were joined by the massive and violent weather system that blew in from Texas. 4 The cold front that pushed the Texas weather east into Atlanta developed at the same time that a strong low-pressure center moved across Oklahoma and toward the Great Lakes Sunday morning. That strong cold front helped push the violent Texas-based system across Mississippi and Alabama, and into Georgia.

The National Weather Service said that between 6 a.m. CST Saturday and 6 a.m. CST Sunday, 23 tornadoes touched down in Texas, 15 in Louisiana, nine in Mississippi, and one in Alabama. There were 46 other reports of damaging thun-' derstorm winds and large hail. The service said at least six tornadoes touched down in Georgia Sunday.

The cold front pushing behind the thunderstorms was expected to cross Georgia Sunday night and drive the violent weather into the Atlantic by this morning. The National Weather Service said thunderstorms were expected to continue in South Georgia and eastern Georgia Sunday night, with the rain ending in the southeast early today. Meteorologist Von Woods said drier and slightly cooler air will enter western; Georgia this morning. Highs today will range from the 60s in North Georgia to the mid-70s in the south. The weather service expects in-, creasing clouds tonight with scattered' showers in west Georgia.

Overnight lows will range from about 40 in the' mountains to the upper 50s in the southeast Showers are likely in Georgia Tues'-; day with highs in the 60s in the north and' mid-70s in the southeast -4 WAt'3-a Journal The Afanta Constitution 'At that moment, trees in the back bent double' Cherokee hamlet's hour of darkness CD Cfcfi JUINA I l-IAIN INtW I UIN iian jUnexplainable: A Sunday tornado played hopscotch over north Cobb's Parkwood Commons subdivision, destroying some wuses while leaving others standing in silent testimony to what was. mum: m. mm, feJbrtH Cobb subdivision ong area's hardest hit Uy John Blake Staff writer i the sky -turning black at noon. Trees pending like licorice sticks. The eerie, train-tlike whistle growing louder as something ap downed trees so he could drive her out" Mrs.

Umphlett, he said, told, the firefighters "she just stayed on the floor, but that's all she could remember. There's the floor over there." He motioned through the rain toward a twisted pile. Mrs. Umphlett was treated at a Canton hospital and released. "She's pretty bruised Beverly Umphlett said.

"Her mouth, and her eyes, and her legs. She's pretty beat up, but nothing broken." i 'It's just incredible' Someone had an ill premonition when they named Hickory Flat, a farming community of 4,000 homes nestled in the hills of Cherokee County. Fire Chief Berry says the unincorporated area is beginning to feel the pull of metro Atlanta, and new subdivisions are going up all around the gently, rolling pastures. But the newer! houses largely were spared; and the oldest homes stood; hard against the shrieking; winds. The tornado struck amid pouring rains just as churches? were letting out, and many peoC pie Were contemplating Sunday! dinner.

It blasted across the; pastures into Benni Darnell's; barn, tore off the new roof( wiped out his mobile-home' sales office and slammed a trailer into the roadway. Then iC crossed Georgia 140 West, battered other trailers in a smalt park there and skipped over tor I Bart Manous Road, playing hell; with the huge oaks and barns i there. "Destroyed the Todd Adams said at his father's! house on Bart Manous. "That pecan tree used to be leaning toward the house; now it's lean' I ing away. The doghouse is in 15 pieces, and the dog's OK It's I just incredible." 2 Except for the garage and i the doghouse, the Adams home! i sustained little damage, and, that wasn't the only miracle ii Hickory Flat Sunday.

it Motorists survive ordeal An unidentified couple front nearby Fulton County was drivj ing through the Flat when the winds hit. the rain got so intense they pulled off the road right in front of Mr. Darnell's mobile-home office. I A large pine broke off and slammed into the Ford Country, Squire wagon, flattening thq passenger cabin. Neither wds seriously hurt although their car was a heap of gnarled steel and broken glass.

"We got them and took then to the hospital," said Fire Chief Berry, who had all availably hands out on Sunday afternoon', "We've got their dog at the station." The couple came through Jit well, considering. "Considering that he almost got said Hickory Flat paramedic Michael Bieger; who helped the injured man onto a back, board. "He complaining about some serious back pain, but he was out and walking around." The couple were treated and released from a Canton hospl tal, a supervisor said. Chief Berry said he didit't get their names. "It was a man, a woman and a miniature poor die," he said.

They collected their dog about 5 p.m. Sunday from the fire department and went home. By Richard Halicks STAFF WRITER Jeff Humphries, 16, blasted his mud-caked quadrunner down the narrow, rutted track that runs off the main road and back into the rolling pastures of Hickory Flat The rain quickened, and at Jeff's speed, each drop was a needle in his face. He waved at his dad, who buzzed his chain saw in the gloom, carving up a large oak that had been blocking the way. "There's trees all over the road and all over people's houses and stuff," said Jeff, as neighbors nearby nailed heavy plastic over a hole in a trailer roof.

"Not a house back there that's not demolished. Chicken houses, all of them are took down." The winds roared through this quiet hamlet in southeastern Cherokee County halfway between Roswell and Canton during a dark noon hour Sunday, snapping power lines, uprooting scores of trees, destroying a half-dozen of the mobile homes that dot the hillsides and damaging many other structures. Larry Berry, chief of the volunteer Hickory Flat Fire Department, estimated damage in the community exceeded $200,000. The worst of it was way down the tiny lane where Jeff Humphries navigated his four-wheeler. A frantic search for Mama On a far hilltop, close by the chicken houses, a wind of terrifying force seized Roxie Umph-lett's mobile home, rolled it over and then smashed it to pieces.

Mrs. Umphlett, 76, was alone inside. Her son, Hugh, dug through the frightening jumble of furniture, appliances and scrap wood until he found her, trapped beneath an overturned freezer. Hugh's wife, Beverly Umphlett, said she and her husband were at home about 12:30 p.m. Sunday when the storm hit.

"I was watching Ken Cook on TV, and he was saying there was a tornado warning for Cobb and Cherokee counties. And right at that moment, the trees in the back bent double, and my husband started yelling that we had to get downstairs. "We couldn't get into the basement because of the air vacuum. The door was shut tight, and my husband was pulling on it with all his might. Then he finally got it open, just a crack, and we squeezed through." She said the howling winds sounded at first "like I'd always heard it would.

It sounded like a freight train. But then it changed. It sounded like jets were landing in our field. That's exactly, what it sounded like." And it was gone in seconds. Sunday night, speaking from a kitchen that was lit only by a Coleman lantern, she recalled how her husband glanced out th window and shouted, "Oh my gosh! Mama's trailer!" Then he tore out of the house, ran to the trailer and rescued his mother.

A few hours later, Hickory Flat Fire Capt. Clark Cldud was sifting the ruins in the rain. "We met him right up there on the road; he had her in his car," Captain Cloud said. "He was waiting on us to cut through the she mused as she watched neighbors work on one home. As neighbors gathered in the streets to talk about the tornado, small stories of heroism and narrow escapes emerged.

One concerned a mother and her two daughters. Howard Hochman, Rose's brother-in-law, saw a frantic mother run up the street in her high heels right after the tornado struck. She was trying to get to her two daughters, who were home when the tornado hit She suddenly spotted them waving to her from the top of a hill as she ran toward her house, said Mr. Hochman, 55. "She had a smile on her face," he said.

"That was all she needed to know." Then there was the father and his grown son. They were watching a football game when the tornado struck. The son grabbed the father by his shirt and pulled him down the cellar as the storm approached. When the son looked up from the basement, he saw nothing but sky. "When I saw them, both were sitting in the street, holding each other," said Giardina, a neighbor.

Resident Tom Andrew, 32, surveyed the collapsed homes and trees that littered his, neighborhood, then he put his hands over his tool belt and sighed. "I guess I'll take tomorrow off," he said. sion rallied together after it was over. Parkwood Commons, located in north Cobb east of Exit 118 off Interstate 75, was right in the path of one of the tornadoes that raced through the Northside, fire officials said. At least two homes in the neighborhood were obliterated, and at least four others were partly blown apart.

Few escaped damage. Remarkably, no one was seriously injured in the subdivision of $100,000 patio homes. The 150-house development looked like a surrealistic painting, with objects strewn about in the strangest combinations. A metal guard from an interstate highway rested in a back yard. One home looked untouched from the front, but its entire rear was blown off.

Trees rested inside bedrooms. The tornado's aftermath was just as eerie as its beginning, Parkwood Common resi-dents said. "It was still totally quiet and very warm," Mrs. Giardina When residents emerged from their homes, they didn't wait for the cleanup crews. They quickly organized their own crews to cut away fallen trees.

That's the kind of neighborhood Park-wood Common is, said Rose Hochman. "The neighborhood is coming together," proached outside. Frank Giardina knew he was in no ordinary storm when he saw the scene unfold outside his Kennesaw home Sunday. "This is it, Dad! This is it, Dad!" his 12-year-old son shouted as he ran toward his father. Running behind Mr.

Giardina's son was his wife, Debbie, and their 14-year-old son. He hurled his family inside a dining room closet but couldn't fit inside himself. So he slammed the door shut and pressed his body against the door as the tornado shook his home in the Parkwood Commons subdivision, one of the harder hit neighborhoods in Cobb County. "Things were going by the window that I couldn't even recognize," Mr. Giardina said.

"The wind was black, and my ears kept popping." The tornado seemed to last only seconds, Mr. Giardina said, but he won't soon forget its fury or the way residents in his subdivi Stories from the storm A time that lasted about 30 seconds, but seemed like forever' usual, you could sense that. My deck is destroyed, trees are all down. We don't have a tree left on our property." The tornadoes that blasted through the state spawned hundreds of stories tales of tragedy, of terror and of hope. Here are a few of them: Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Woodstock was heavily damaged when a twister struck during the morning service.

One worshiper, Barbara Winfrey, said the congregation had just finished singing "Amazing Grace" when the windows shattered. "Just a short few minutes later my fiancee was at a glass patio door, and winds started blowing, and trees started snapping, and three trees fell on the house," Mr. Burkett said. "There's broken glass everywhere. Our Rottweiler puppy was out on the front porch.

"The winds split our roof open. We haven't found our puppy. The wind was so strong, I was standing next to the front door and it wasn't quite latched, and it took everything I had to hold the door shut. I've never experienced anything like that." He said it "lasted about 30 seconds, but seemed like forever." Upon hearing sirens in the Marietta Square, the 300 to 400 worshipers at St. James Episcopal Church moved to the basement during the Rev.

Scott May's sermon about 11 a.m. He had been preaching "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture," said vestryman Farris Saliba, 60. "There were two or three jokes about it after we reassembled." Gerald Piel, 47, said the winds took part of his roof and some tiles and ripped several holes in his Kennesaw house. "It came and we went to the center of the house," Mr. Piel said.

"We knew it was a little un- "The sky got very dark, and the rain started coming down very hard, and the winds picked up tremendously," said Bruce Silverman, 39, of Kennesaw. "I ran to the window, and I saw a tree starting to bend over, and the wind was swirling a lot of leaves in the air. I found plywood laying in my front yard, and I don't even know where it came from." From staff reports Andy Burkett, 21, of Kennesaw, said he and his fiancee turned the TV to the Weather Channel and saw a warning of tornadoes in their area. 1 1.