Some people in Douglas County are bracing for more severe weather while they’re still cleaning up from a tornado a few months ago.
“Literally it sounded like a train,” said Larry Poorbaugh, who lives off of Fairburn Road. “It was a sudden gust, and then the power went out.”
The National Weather Service confirmed an EF0 tornado ripped through his neighborhood in December.
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“I had no idea it was going to hit like that,” Poorbaugh said.
That storm sent a young girl to the hospital with a broken leg after a tree fell through her home.
“It was very short lived, less than a quarter mile wide, about 100 yards long,” said Douglas County EMA Director, James Queen.
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Poorbaugh and his neighbors are still cleaning up from the tornado in December. Renovations started on the home where the tree fell a few weeks ago, and on Saturday, Channel 2′s Eryn Rogers saw crews fixing a fence that was damaged in December.
“I hope this doesn’t become a pattern,” Poorbaugh said.
Queen said the storms Saturday night are expected to be different, though.
“What we were given during our briefing was the possibility of EF2 tornadoes, so they’re going to be a lot stronger, and they’re predicting that they’ll be on the ground a lot longer,” Queen said.
He said police, fire, and Emergency management all have extra staff working if the conditions get bad.
“We will have them constantly out on the roads, even if it’s a situation where it’s bad enough and the winds are high, they’re still going to respond,” Queen said. Although, he added, some fire rigs can’t operate in extremely high winds.
The EMA director told me they are constantly monitoring the storms and will assess the damage once the storms pass.
Douglas County has two community shelters open. People can seek shelter at Deer Lick Park and the Lithia Springs Senior Center.
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