A Macon man cleaned up all morning after a storm wrecked his boats Wednesday night. Those boats were used for a Special Olympics sailing program.
Lake Tobesofkee is calm now, but the violent storm Tuesday ruined some Special Olympics sailing boats.
Program director Phil Martin says, "Not only did it flip over this one, but it flipped over the yellow one also."
Martin says he's been loading his truck with large branches and debris that fell on the boats. He says he has been volunteering for nearly 40 years with water sports for the disabled. The Special Olympics sailing program has been around since 1995. He says he saw worse damage once, after the 2008 Mother's Day tornado.
Martin says, "One of our hobie cats got picked up at this area and was taken to the other side of the lake where it landed and broke into about 20 different pieces."
The boats off the lake are now missing pieces.
"We want to make sure these boats are just as safe as they can possibly be, so these I will not trust again after this damage," says Martin.
Martin says he planned to use all three hobie cat boats for practice on Saturday.
He says, "We do have one boat left over that, with little work, we can put back on the water. I consider that, you know, we are fortunate. It could have been a lot worse."
Stacy Starr says her daughter was sad when she heard the news. Starr says her daughter always has fun competing in water sports. She hopes the last boat can be fixed for the weekend.
"I was devastated because we have practice on Saturdays and that's what we do on Saturdays, come out and practice sailing," says Starr.
Martin says he wants more people to volunteer for kids. One of the volunteers started a GoFundMe page: Adapted Aquatics Phil Martin. The program is trying to raise $10,000 to replace the boats.