Last night, amid the news that horrendous storms were going to pass through Georgia overnight, I went to bed with some concern over the trees in my back yard, and concerns that a large branch that really could be better off being pruned off would be the greatest risk to my home, if it were to snap and fall on my house. I made sure my freshly repaired computer was properly powered down, and I was hoping that my dog wouldn’t be scared by all the arriving flashing lights of lightning pulsing through the night skies. Regardless, I went to bed fairly easy because I am old.
However, I woke up at 5 am to other dog whining, wanting to be let out. This has become something of a normal occurrence now, and I’m finding that I’m not even making it to my personal alarm more frequently than not, much to my occasional annoyance. Regardless, with the night (mostly) passed, my mind began churning with curiosity of how bad the weather still was, at 5 in the morning.
Taking the dogs out, it was just wet outside, like it was just any other rain that had passed by. After coming back in, I went to the rear windows to try and get a scope of the backyard, and despite it being dark, I didn’t see any large branches sitting ominously in my yard, mocking me with an “almost got you” proximity to my home. So, with the supposed nightmare storms in the past, I tried to get a little bit more sleep, failed anyway, and began my day earlier than usual, since I can justify going in at ass o’clock because of the busy season at work.
Durning my morning surfing rounds, I come to discover that despite the fact that my region of the metro Atlanta area seemed to make it through the night relatively unscathed, there were other areas that weren’t as lucky. Namely, one specific neighborhood in South Fulton County which got a literal brunt of the night’s storms, as an actual tornado touched down right in the subdivision and basically obliterated an entire neighborhood.
The photos don’t really do that much justice to just how bad the damage was; from what I understand from the news, the damage estimates have already surpassed $10 million dollars, and every single home in the subdivision was to have reported substantial damage. Some homes way worse than others, and by that, I’m talking about entire walls ripped off of frames, entire frames being shaken off their foundations, windows being torn off of homes, shingles and siding being peeled and flung around like leaves from trees.
What chills my bones the very most is the fact that this particular subdivision was practically right near where my old house was. Less than the fingers on a single hand in miles, in fact.
Earlier in the week marked exactly one year since Jen and I signed the paperwork and officially sold our old house. Frankly, the two of us were pretty content living there, but through the natural direction and progression of our lives, it occurred to us that we had to sell the house and go our separate directions. Frankly, the timing was right, since we’d paid so much of our loan off to the point where in spite of being underwater, we could still get out with a little bit of profit, and to be perfectly honest, neither of us were thrilled in the direction that the neighborhood was headed.
To say we lucked out in how fast and efficiently we got out the door is an understatement that we still applaud to this very day, whenever there’s news of how inept the local government is, or what negative occurrences are still happening in the old neighborhood.
But the thing is, had our lives not gone in the directions they did, and the two of us were still kind of aimless and without direction, the chances are good that we’d probably still be living down there, figuring out what to do with our lives.
And being right in the warpath of a tornado that would have very likely done some damage to our home as well, considering based on the photographic evidence I’m seeing, was probably the same builder as our old subdivision.
It’s crazy to think that whereas my home now was mostly unaffected by the bad weather of the night prior, my old neighborhood was basically next to ground zero of the worst hit part of the state. I mean yeah we lived out in the sticks then, but it was still Fulton county and thus a legitimate inclusion to the Metro Atlanta area, which can similarly be said about my home now.
But enough about what-ifs and my loose connection with an area of destruction. Most of all, the greatest takeaway I get from the whole story is my immense sense of sadness and empathy for all those who were affected by the tornado. It’s been nearly ten years since a tornado hit Atlanta in like 2009, that flooded parts of the city and caused a lot of damage. But most of that was in the city proper itself, and Atlanta actually gives a shit about downtown Atlanta.
The same cannot be said about South Fulton county, and it’s horrifying to go on NextDoor and see the discussions about the sheer lack of warnings or alarms or any sort of emergency alerting system in the area, leaving people to be vulnerable or subject to the worst of the terror from Mother Nature’s unforgiving wrath.
Now I’ve got no shortage of criticisms and snarky things to say about South Fulton, having lived there as long as I did. But I do know that in spite of the increasing crime in the area, there’s still a lot of people who legitimately care and want better for their area, despite the fact that most of their requests and demands repeatedly fall on deaf ears. Yet they live their lives and continue to do so in spite of the neglect, and my heart goes out to these people who had to endure the fright of a natural disaster being dropped on their heads.
Hell, even the bad people who lurk around, nobody should really have to go through this. Every person should be entitled to safe refuge from the elements, and it breaks my heart to know that after last night, there is an entire community of people whose homes are damaged, exposed and currently unsafe, and the weather isn’t getting much better tonight or the next day. To say the weather has been bipolar this year is an understatement and most certainly is not contributing to any potential relief efforts by those trying to repair what’s so expansively broken.
It’s very scary to know that such powerful weather touched down in Georgia so close to where I used to live, and I feel extremely fortunate to have avoided the most destructive wrath. But at the same time, I feel terrible for those who weren’t so lucky, and all I can really do is hope that the relief efforts don’t drag their feet as often as things tend to down in South Fulton, and that the homes are repaired quickly, and that those affected the worst can get back to some normalcy sooner rather than later.
