MACON, Ga. — Homes along Wimbish Road and Old Lundy Road took a beating in Tuesday’s storms -- even a vital piece of a history at a north Macon congregation took a tumble.
“When they built the sanctuary in 1980, it was a big deal. The day the steeple was placed, the last part of a long building project,” said Northminster Presbyterian pastor, Ralph Hawkins.
Families even signed their names on the cross at the top of the pinnacle. At sunrise Tuesday morning, everything looked calm, but that quickly changed hours later.
“At the moment we were watching out the window, trees were horizontal, powerlines were everywhere, and that’s when we sorta hunkered down in the hallway,” said Hawkins.
Nature’s rage came fast and ferocious.
“Ultimately we heard a big boom in the building, and it was the steeple coming down on top of us,” said Michael Napier.
“I started hearing water inside the building and began to investigate and realized we had two gaping holes in the roof, and of course a tower open to the sky,” said Hawkins.
The steeple laid out on the black rooftop, slaughtered by the squalls.
Crane crews moved in Wednesday to bring it down to the ground. It took a good bit of the morning to gently get it to the concrete.
Most of the metal that meant so much will go to the scrap heap.
“My primary emotion is gratitude. This is a great congregation; they'll weather this just fine. You never want to see damage to a building you care about, but no one was hurt… everything is repairable. There is a lot to be grateful for,” said Hawkins.
The entire mass of steel weighed around 8,000 pounds, but what’s weighing on people’s hearts is the cross at the top that was destroyed.
Pastor Hawkins hopes they find other pieces inside the sanctuary and he says they’re going to do something special with them, like stitch them together and put it on display for the congregation.
He says they’ll work it out on whether they'll be able to worship in the building this weekend.