The Macon Telegraph from Macon, Georgia • A1

TO CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE, CALL (800) 679-6397 or (478) 744-4288 Business Classified Comics Commentary Crossword Local State Movies About Obituaries Out About Inside Sports Stock Markets TV schedule MIddLE NEwSpApER www.macon.com 6 sections, 58 pages, Vol. 185, Issue 119 Sunny and lower humidity through weekend weather, c12 April 29, 2011 Friday Green goes to Bengals, 1B GRANT TELEGRAPH Atlanta Gas Light workers look to turn off service to a home that was destroyed by a tornado on Grove Street, just west of downtown Barnesville, early Thursday morning. Across the street from this house was the home of Paul and Ellen Gunter, the two confirmed midstate deaths in the storm. GRANT TELEGRAPH Volunteers gingerly replace family photos in a home on Grove Street in Barnesville. GRANT TELEGRAPH Among the things salvaged from the area of the house were a Navy peacoat and high school yearbooks.

Some tornadoes wide as a mile and likely packed a wallop that only 1 in 100 twisters ever reach blew At least 290 dead in 6 states; 14 dead in Georgia Despite warning systems, storms too wide, too powerful, too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count By JIM GAINES tighter rules on smok- ing are going back to the draw- ing board, sent there by a mayor- al veto Thursday. Macon Mayor Robert Reichert said he thinks the measure was passed without sufficient pub- lic input. veto is based on the fact that this ordinance is, in my opin- ion, excessively broad and includes public parks as well as all other open as areas that would be off-limits to smokers, he said in a news release. The measure passed Macon City Council on April 19 by a vote of 9-6. It takes 10 votes to override a mayoral veto.

than override the veto, I encourage council to reduce the scope of this ordinance and get Bibb County to pass a joint ordi- statement said. will work with them in this re- in line with what some opponents wanted. Councilman Mike Cranford said local business owners were petitioning Reich- Reichert vetoes ordinance tightening smoking rules Five-year-old Charlie Strom, huddled with his family and their miniature schnauzer in Barnesville, 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 While flecks of insulation swirled, stinging their eyes and flying into their mouths, Dennis Strom peeked up and watched his roof back like a sardine SEE SMokING, 6A By JoE koVAC JR.

BarNeSVILLe Our stretch of Georgia had already been socked by its share of storms this spring. Atmospheric up- percuts had claimed lives, creamed houses, crushed cars, even closed schools. Now this. A sure-enough earthquake from above. The tornado that all but erased parts of a neighbor- hood along a country lane on northwest side early Thursday unfurled from the tail end of a dead- ly wave of meteorologic fury that, over two days, stam- peded the South.

All told, at least 290 people died along a trail of devasta- tion that stretched from Mississippi to Virginia, with more than two-thirds of the deaths in Alabama alone. Closer to home, the middle-of-the-night monster wal- loped scores of houses and killed a Lamar County hus- band and wife, leaving the little girl adopted with no parents. One of the dead relatives, his expression numbed to a dull stare late Thursday morning, gazed out at what was left of the demolished doublewide. Then Roy Butts lowered his voice and described how his kin next door had found 8-year-old Chloie Gunter wander- ing in her yard in the darkness about half past midnight, and her telling them, blew Ellen S. Gunter, 63, and Paul Howard Gunter, 73, were found dead amid debris in their backyard at 437 Grove St.

Wrecking ball of weather slams Georgia, midstate By CARYN GRANT FOrSYth Somewhere, buried in the midst of red-clay covered dolls, books, photographs and trophies, lay a small white box. In it were two rings to be exchanged July 23 Chris Landers and Cristi planned wedding date. Thursday, as friends and family sifted through what once was the young home on Weldon Road in north Monroe County, digging past furniture and appli- ances strewn by a tornado early that morning, they strug- gled to find the rings. rings were in the nightstand by my Chris Landers said, pointing to a flipped-over mattress near the Monroe couple loses rings for their July wedding in storm, but family happy to pull through SEE ToRNAdoES, 8A 8-year-old Barnesville girl found by relatives wandering in backyard after her adoptive parents were killed SEE MoNRoE, 6A oNlINE Visit our website for photos and audio of storm coverage..