May 23, 2013
News
Cleanup Begins After Severe Storms Slam Central Georgia
NewsCentral Staff
Severe weather pummeled central Georgia Monday evening leaving behind a trail of damage and debris that may have been leftover from at least one potential tornado.
Survey crews from the National Weather Service will survey damage in Sumter and Dooly counties Tuesday following a tornado-warned storm that moved through the area just after 8 p.m. Monday.
Elsewhere, numerous counties are reporting trees and power lines down, leaving thousands in the dark.
As of 10 p.m. Monday, Georgia Power is reporting 26,000 outages in central Georgia with 14,000 in Macon, 11,000 in Milledgeville and hundreds in Hawkinsville and Dublin.
Flint Energies also reported over 2,000 outages at the height of the storms across Crawford, Peach and Houston counties.
In Macon, officials received reports of trees and power lines down county-wide. Several homes received damage and in some cases, people were trapped inside forcing firefighters to rescue them.
Fortunately, at this time, we have no reports of injuries from anywhere in central Georgia.
Below is a list of damage reports from across the region:
Bibb County: Numerous trees down in Lake Wildwood and across the city of Macon. Several trees were on homes with people trapped. A peak wind gust of over 50 mph was recorded.
Hancock County: Numerous trees down county-wide.
Houston County: Widespread trees down across the county. Nearly all the unincorporated areas are without power.
Jones County: Numerous trees down county-wide.
Laurens County: Numerous trees down county-wide.
Monroe County: Numerous trees down county-wide. Traffic accidents resulted from storms on I-75.
Peach County: Tree down on a mobile home near Byron.
Putnam County: Golf ball sized hail in Eatonton fell for 20 minutes, covering the ground.
Sumter County: Trees down in Plains. Golf ball sized hail damaged a windshield of car on Highway 19 and near Americus.
If you have damage reports, e-mail them to WGXA's Chief Meteorologist Jeff Cox at jeffcox@newscentralga.com.
You can receive automated alerts on Facebook by searching 'StormTrack Weather' and on Twitter by following @WXManJeffCox and @StormTrackWX.
WGXA is also proud to offer WeatherCall - an automated alert system that only alerts you if your home is in the danger zone. Visit this link for more information: http://www.newscentralga.com/weather/weather-call
