The National Weather Service survey team has made a preliminary finding that an EF-0 tornado — with winds of 75 mph — touched down near Booger Hollow Road in southern Floyd County during Thursday night’s tornado/thunderstorm warning. The expanded report below from the NWS:
...NWS TORNADO DAMAGE SURVEY FOR MARCH 14, 2019 SEVERE WEATHER EVENT... .FLOYD COUNTY TORNADO... RATING: EF-0 ESTIMATED PEAK WIND: 75 MPH PATH LENGTH /STATUTE/: 1.75 MILES PATH WIDTH /MAXIMUM/: 150 YARDS FATALITIES: 0 INJURIES: 0 START DATE: 03/14/2019 START TIME: 8:06 PM EDT START LOCATION: 5 MILES EAST OF CAVE SPRING, GEORGIA START LAT/LON: 34.1187 / -85.2586 END DATE: 03/14/2019 END TIME: 8:08 PM EDT END LOCATION: 7 MILES EAST NORTHEAST OF CAVE SPRING, GEORGIA END LAT/LON: 34.1278 / -85.2314 SURVEY SUMMARY: AN EF-0 TORNADO BRIEFLY TOUCHED DOWN IN SOUTHERN FLOYD COUNTY ON THE EVENING OF THURSDAY MARCH 14, 2019. THE TORNADO FIRST TOUCHED DOWN ALONG RANDALL RD SW WHERE A FEW TREES WERE UPROOTED AND A SHED WAS DESTROYED. THE TORNADO CONTINUED EAST ALONG BOOGER HOLLOW ROAD WHERE NUMEROUS TREES WERE UPROOTED OR SNAPPED. TWO HOMES WERE DAMAGED JUST NORTH OF THE INTERSECTION OF BOOGER HOLLOW RD AND LYONS BRIDGE RD. A CARPORT COLLAPSED AND PORTIONS OF THE ROOF OF THE HOME AND A BUILDING BESIDE THE HOME PEELED AND SCATTERED IN THE YARD. ANOTHER HOME ADJACENT HAD SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF ITS METAL ROOF PEELED BACK ALLOWING RAINWATER TO DAMAGE THE INSIDE. A TRAMPOLINE WAS TOSSED APPROXIMATELY 100 YARDS OVER THE SECOND HOME AND INTO A NEIGHBORS TREE. NUMEROUS TREES WERE SNAPPED IN THE FOREST ADJACENT THE HOMES. BOTH IMPACTED HOMEOWNERS WERE HOME AT THE TIME OF THE TORNADO AND HAD SEEN COVERAGE ON THE NEWS THAT THE STORM WAS COMING. THE TORNADO LIFTED APPROXIMATELY A QUARTER MILE ENE OF THE DAMAGED HOMES BEFORE REACHING HWY 27.
Tim Herrington, Floyd County’s emergency management director, offers the following update on the tornado and the damage it caused:
“We had an EF-0 Tornado with winds of about 75 mph at Booger Hollow Road and Randall Road area. There were two homes affected with homeowners inside during the storm. No one was hurt. I have contacted Red Cross and they are sending out a case worker to assist the families. One house sustained major roof damage and occupants are staying with relatives. The other home just had minor damage to front porch, garage and to an out building.”
The survey crew also is checking Polk County for potential tornadoes Thursday night.
An EF-0 tornado is the weakest of six ratings that end with an EF-5. Last month, an EF-4 tornado with clocked winds of 170, decimated Lee County, Ala., killing 23 people.
We’ll have additional updates later today.
Concerns about weather notifications in Gordon County during Thursday’s storms. Here’s a note from Courtney Taylor, Director of Gordon County Emergency Management:
It has come to our attention that many people did not receive the severe thunderstorm warnings from the HyperReach system until late into the warning or even after the warning had expired for the storms that occurred on March 14-15. We have been working today to gather information on the notifications that went out as compared to the time of the issued warning. That information has been compiled and sent to HyperReach and it has been requested for them to investigate the reason for this delay in services.
While we continue to work toward a resolution and solution to this with HyperReach we do want to remind all citizens your best means of receiving alerts is by purchasing a NOAA weather radio with specific area message encoding (SAME). These radios can be programmed to receive the counties of your choice to help you get even more advanced warning as the storm approaches. This is the fastest and most reliable way to receive weather related warnings. Also, we urge citizens who will be utilizing a cell phone to receive weather related warnings and information to sign up through multiple apps to receive alerts so as to have built in redundancy in case one fails.
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