CEDARTOWN, Ga. — Residents of Polk County are recovering from widespread storm damage near Cedartown.
Cedartown resident Miguel Escutia said he was home from working an overnight shift and was trying to sleep through it.
“At first I just heard thunder,” he said. “And I lay back down. I heard the hail hitting the windows. I got back up. When I got back up the ceiling caved.”
If he’d stayed in place, he said “it would have got me.” He said it happened about 12:30pm Thursday.
Escutia and his wife, Yareli Banuelos, and their three school-aged children were unharmed. Earlier Friday, they were unable to even get into their house because of the damage.
An area near Friendly Baptist Church was probably the area hardest hit in Polk County. Thankfully, we’re told there were only a few minor injuries from the storm.
“It was destructive and sure enough scary,” said Randy Jackson, a lifelong resident of the community near the church.
Jackson said he was standing on the now-flattened porch of his house watching the skies darken and the wind pick up. Then came thunder and hail the size of a quail egg.
“And I was like, 'man it’s gonna come a tornado,'” Jackson said. “But the Lord gives us enough sense to get in out of the rain. So we got in out of it.”
Jackson retreated back into the now-destroyed house he said his father built in the 1950s – for just a few seconds.
“Everybody says, 'you know, you hear like a freight train rolling?' Man, we didn’t hear nothing. It was just a whoop of wind, and here we are.”
Jackson had abundant company in the community surrounding his home – residents gathering remnants of their lives and belongings – scattered by a strict and destructive wind.
“I’m not feeling so good,” said Connie Lane, who said she’d gone without sleep for 24 hours. She has lived here 30 years, in a house now uninhabitable.
“It was devastating. You just think, this can not be happening to me,” Lane said.
“I don’t know if it’s all really sunk in yet. It’s just hard to see your home destroyed. We’re just trying to process that, and move forward,” added Banuelos.
Jackson said the upside outweighs the pain. “Man I was terrified. Scariest I ever been,” Jackson, 61, said. “But we rode it out. We’re alive. That’s the main thing.”