The Macon Telegraph from Macon, Georgia • A8

8A Friday, april 29, 2011THE TELEGRAPHmacon.com BEAU TELEGRAPH Friends and relatives of Chris Landers, right, help gather up the remains after a tornado completely destroyed his house early Thursday morning. At least three other homes along Weldon Road in north Monroe County sustained damage from the winds that blew through about 1 a.m. GRANT TELEGRAPH The tornado that hit near Barnesville cut a wide and definitive path, snapping off trees and damaging houses. on a few-acres-wide spread where two other homes both oblit- erated belong to other fami- ly members. The scene at the hillside homestead was one of breathtaking despair, their world reduced to loose change.

There was a quarter perched atop their crumbled, cinder-block founda- tion. There were nickels in the yard. Sheet music for the hit from the late 1970s, was wrapped around a tree branch been stripped of its bark. It was the kind of sight that makes folks say as many of them here did never seen anything like VCR tape, sucked from cas- settes, was strung all over what remained of the trees, stream- ers of black decoration for the saddest of landscapes. A Visa card that belonged to a man across the road touched down near the back steps.

Nearby, a Lincoln Continental crash-landed upside down along a treeline. I could imagine a huge bomb going off, I know if it would be this Butts said. Some of the neigh- bors been tossed about in some instances even hurled from their residences sur- vived. The three most serious- ly hurt were taken to a hospital in Griffin, but Lamar Coun- ty Sheriff Larry Waller said, An estimated 1,200 Lamar res- idents were without power and, for some anyway, electric ser- vice expected to be re- stored until Saturday. The same wrecking ball of weather that slammed into Barnes- outskirts early Thursday mangled rooftops across the mid- state and caved in part of a chick- en house in Lamar County.

But Grove Street, situated along a ridge of rolling terrain about 12 miles southwest of the High Falls exit on Interstate 75, may well have taken the meanest punch from the EF-3-rated twist- er, with winds of 140 mph. Dennis house, a few hundred yards southwest of the Gunter place, absorbed a body blow. If his 8-year-old daughter, McKenna, awakened to use the restroom and seen a spider crawling in the tub, his family may not be alive. The spider spooked her into roust- ing them. she Strom said, wife heard the sirens and we immediately got in the Then the ground trembled.

After that came the house- swallowing suction. Five-year-old Charlie Strom, huddled with his family and their miniature schnauzer, said, gonna be while his mother, Nealy, prayed, please protect and they all spoke of how much they loved one another. I could see the house being hit, I thought that was Dennis Strom said. thought we were all fixing to go to heav- While flecks of insulation swirled, stinging their eyes and flying into their mouths, Dennis Strom peeked up and watched his roof back like a sar- dine it would lightning, you could see objects fly by he said, when it light- ning, it was just dark. You could hear everything breaking, you could hear stuff It was over in maybe 90 sec- onds.

Up the road, across a patch of now-leafless woods on other side of a slope, Karen house survived the tornado in better shape. Even if there was a tree limb lodged in her living room. Hers was one of the few hous- es on the street with a mailbox still standing. carport fare so well. It disappeared.

Poof. she said. explain tornadoes. You just have to have a healthy re- spect for Across the street, another brick house was in ru- ins. Exterior walls collapsed.

The roof, sheared off, had sailed away. A friend from Monroe County dropped in Thursday morning to console the resident. While the homeowner waded into the debris of what had been her kitchen, the friend, Maggie Cameron, stood in the driveway and watched. Then she turned and took in a horizon that offered dishearten- ment in every direction. nasty-looking, she said.

And the change of seasons over. The three-year anniversa- ry of the mighty Day tornadoes is still more than a week off. To contact writer Joe Kovac call 744-4397. ToRnAdoEs from 1a you experienced a direct hit from one of these (tornadoes), have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or to survive, said Greg Carbin at the National Weather Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S.

tornadoes since april 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states. The tornado that struck Tuscaloosa, could be an EF-5 the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph and was at least the second-highest category, an EF-4. BEAU TELEGRAPH Chris Landers, a Monroe County deputy, holds the trophy he received for academic excellence while at the police academy that was found broken in his back yard with other possessions blown away by early morning storm. BEAU TELEGRAPH Johnny home near Ga. 42 got in the line of the storm that blew through northern Monroe County and lost a part of a roof to trees that snapped off.

GRANT TELEGRAPH Roy Butts looks through what is left of a family home on Grove Street in Barnesville on Thursday after the tornado that struck the area destroyed it and many others..