WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ga. — After strong winds and rain swept through Central Georgia Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning, people are having to deal with the damage left by the storms.
Powerful and angry winds pummeled a small portion of Washington County just after 8:30 a.m.
The storm stayed on the ground for a few moments, but some say it's a day they'll never forget.
In the Walden Woods subdivision, one particular house had a good bit of damage -- two bedrooms are completely gone. The owner said he couldn't go on camera, but he's just pretty shellshocked. He said he's lived in the home for 25 years, but no one was home when the storm happened and everyone in the neighborhood came out OK.
"We noticed that the wind was blowing and we couldn't see outside, and I heard something --thought it was the garbage truck, but it ended up being this storm and before we could get into the basement, it was pretty much over with," said Randy Helton.
In the time that it took Helton to climb a couple of stairs, the wind's pressure and rain left their mark.
Neighbors gathered around checking on each other and watching crews gather up the giant useless limbs.
13WMAZ met Sheriff Joel Cochran right around the corner on Highway 15 where more homes felt the storm's wrath.
"The storm damage started somewhere along the Fall Line Technical school, which is in the Deepstep - Fall Line Freeway area, and worked its way back this way over to the Walden Woods area. It looks like it traveled some distance, doing a lot of damage while it was down," Cochran said.
"I was standing there at the backdoor, and you could just hear it coming through. I wasn't sure what it was until I come to the end of the street and found all this damage," one neighbor said.
It's more like pine trees engulfed Bill and Susan Black's house. Yet, despite a lot of work ahead, they chatted with smiles on their faces.
"We're alive and our dog and cat are alive, and that's all that matters," Susan Black said.
Don't worry -- the Blacks say they have somewhere to stay Wednesday night, and Susan says the inside doesn't look as bad as the outside of the house, so they say they're going to be fine.
Sheriff Cochran says his deputies and Emergency Management Agency personnel were out working those "hard-hit areas" Wednesday. He figures the damage stretches around a mile-and-a-half, and it's near the Brentwood School.
Students and teachers at Brentwood are OK.
One teacher at the school said they got to go home because a powerline went down and left them without electricity.