ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. — People dealt with downed trees and power lines in Rockdale County following Helene. For two residents in Conyers, the damage and destruction caused by the powerful storm shook their livelihoods.
“You haven’t seen anything yet ‘til you’ve seen this,” said Nickie Robinson as she led 11Alive to the side of her home.
Multiple trees in the backyard toppled over, hitting the side of her house and garage and crashing through portions of her neighbor’s house.
“The house shook, like literally shook,” Robinson said, recalling the moments she heard the trees fall.
She said it happened Friday morning as Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane before entering south Georgia as a Category 2 storm, weakened to a tropical storm but still brought devastating winds and torrential bands of rain with it.
“I ran out of the kitchen, and that’s when I saw the trees like this,” she pointed, the trees narrowly missing their bedrooms. “Thank God.”
In the house next door, Beverly Rosen still remembers the noise.
“It was huge. Just huge. 'Boom,”' she described the noise that rocked her awake.
Beverly Rosen said she and her husband jumped out of bed.
“It was very, very scary. When I saw the damage that was done,” she paused. “It was incredible.”
Rosen said tree limbs broke into her home, busting out windows and breaking through the roof.
“You can see the sky from both rooms, and the windows are completely gone in that side of the house in the back there” she explained. “And it’s a mess. Just a real mess.”
Robinson said while she knows some of her home is damaged, she’s thankful her family and neighbors are okay.
“We’re alive,” she said simply. “I’m still shaken up at this point because that could have been us. One of us could have died.”
Rosen agreed that the damage to the house wasn’t what was on her mind. She was missing her cat, Beanie, who ran away from the home when the trees came crashing down on the house.
“Sadness. Sadness,” she said, crying, when asked what was going through her mind. “Cause he thought he was safe. He was my oldest cat. And the other cats are doing OK. But he’s out there scared to death.”
Rosen later updated 11Alive that her cat, Beanie, was found safe and sound -- making for a happy ending to a horrifying situation for the Conyers resident.