Jan. 23—ADEL — The sound of chainsaws filled the air on Moore Street as Lance Lovett drove through the neighborhood Monday.
“It had been raining lightly off and on all day,” he said through the open window of his truck. “When we heard it, it sounded like the back of a jet engine.”
“It” was a tornado that tore through a neighborhood in Adel Sunday, damaging dozens of homes, though authorities said there were no reported injuries or deaths.
A line of thunderstorms moved through south central Georgia Sunday, bringing rain and tornado warnings to Colquitt, Cook and Berrien counties.
Cook County Fire Chief Johnny West said the worst damage was in the Kent Thomas subdivision just off Bear Creek Road. Police and deputies were blocking casual entry to Bear Creek Road while repair crews, law enforcement and Red Cross representatives were surveying the damage.
The district was a scene of snapped trees, damaged homes and heavy equipment Monday afternoon.
Blue tarps were up on more than one house in the neighborhood. West said 20-25 houses were damaged but most were repairable. He said a building near Interstate 75 was destroyed, as was a fifth-wheel camper.
The trouble began about 5:20 p.m. Sunday, West said. The National Weather Service sent out its first warnings of a possible tornado at about 5 p.m., said Cameron Young, a meteorologist for the weather service’s Tallahassee, Fla., office.
Lovett said after he got the first warning on his smartphone, he grabbed his 9-year-old grandson, Jeremiah, and headed for a “safe spot” in his house — they huddled beside an unusually strong central wall in the building.
“About 10-15 seconds later, there was this hellacious wind,” he said.
He estimated the twister came within 200 yards of his house.
“I was blessed. I was lucky,” he said. “I didn’t get any major damage, just debris.”
Chris and Candace Arnold were not so lucky.
Their house, located near the intersection of Kent Drive and Moore Street, now has a skylight in the living room whether they like it or not.
When all of their smartphones started blaring out a tornado warning — “We noticed it was a warning, not a watch,” Candace Arnold said — the couple and their three children, Krisley, 17, Kayden, 15, and Kanday, 10, huddled in a central hallway of the house.
“There were big booms as trees snapped,” Candace Arnold said.
Trees had been driven through the roof of the house and there was damage to a workshop behind the main building, Chris Arnold said.
For the moment, the family will be living with local relatives, he said.
“The repair estimate is four to six months,” he said.
All-new roofing and some new flooring will be needed, Chris Arnold said.
The weather service had boots on the ground in Adel Monday investigating the tornado, Young said. While they were pretty confident it was a tornado, they weren’t sure yet of the twister’s strength, he said.
In Berrien County, there were tornado warnings but no reports of damage or injuries, according to the Berrien County Sheriff’s Office.
Sunday’s tornado occurred six years to the day after a monster tornado tore through a trailer park in Adel, killing seven people, plus another two fatalities each in Berrien and Brooks counties.
The weather service warned Monday that more rough weather could come through South Georgia Wednesday, with a “marginal” risk of damaging wind gusts and brief tornadoes.
Terry Richards is the senior reporter for The Valdosta Daily Times.