GRIFFIN, Ga. — There were several reports of damage in Griffin Thursday -- parts of Walmart, Dollar General and a Hobby Lobby hit by rain, wind, and a possible tornado.
The scene Thursday night was eerie. Sirens were everywhere, first responders were rushing to help.
Power was out, save for a few blinking stoplights, and the outage is what saved everyone inside one funeral home from a falling tree.
It was almost instant.
The lights went out and the wind howled as Ladamian Raines, Terrence Gibson, and Shameeka Peterson-Smith tried to think about the unthinkable.
"Us three were up there talking like, 'We need to kind of, sort of start moving to the back of the room," Raines said.
As they moved to a safer room, Wayne Peterson watched in horror outside.
"I actually seen the tree leaning over, and 'boom,'" said Peterson.
A massive tree uprooted and slammed into the building.
The folks inside were lucky to be alive.
Raines recounted, "As we were running from our front office down the hall, immediately as we turned the curve, a humongous tree came inside the building."
"I didn't think. My mind was just blank," remembered Peterson.
Peterson called Raines to make sure everyone was OK. Then, they had more work to do.
"Once we got them secured, our next focus was to go in and make sure our human remains were OK, make sure we could save them and still serve our families coming tomorrow and Saturday," said Raines.
Once they sorted that out, finally, they took it all in.
Severe weather for Central Georgia (Jan 12, 2023)
Peterson-Smith recalled, "So many emotions. It's like we worked so hard, and now it seems like everything is just gone."
But in the face of the unthinkable, they don't plan to stop.
They'll be back, they say, better than ever.
"It's coming back. There's only one way. That's the Peterson way. We're going to make sure it works," stated Raines.
The building looks beyond repair now, but one part remained untouched -- the Bible on the table in the corner of the viewing room is pristine.