tornado at the Georgia Dome??

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mellytu74 · #1 Post by **mellytu74** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:10 pm

The Alabama - Mississippi State game is in overtime and delayed by the severe storms in Atlanta.

Apparently, a tornado passed though, the whole building shook and the rafters swayed.

kayrharris · #2 Post by **kayrharris** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:20 pm

Here's the news flash I got:

The game has been delayed after damage occured at the Georgia Dome.

Atlanta is currently under a tornado warning, and parts of the dome were damaged.

However, there are no injuries reported at this time.

There is no word on when the game will resume.

That was at 8:55PM central time. Hope everyone is OK. Nothing like springtime in the south!

#3 Post by **littlebeast13** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:31 pm

At least they were inside.

Although there was officially no tornado associated with it, anyone who was at Busch Stadium on the evening of July 19th 2 years ago knows what it was like for a storm like this to pass through during a sold out event in an open air stadium. Absolutely fascinating to watch, but downright scary in terms of the amount of danger it posed to everyone in attendance....

lb13

tanstaafl2 · #4 Post by **tanstaafl2** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:53 pm

Well that was fun. I was outside in downtown Atlanta several blocks east of the dome when the storm hit. I had just left a downtown theater after a play when it struck. Violent winds with hundreds of windows blown out, broken glass everywhere, awnings, signs and newspaper boxes blown about. I did not hear the roar one associates with a tornado but the winds were powerful. It only lasted for 10-15 minutes but downtown is a mess.

Needless to say I went back into the theater lobby until it passed. There was a horse drawn carriage on the street with several people inside when it hit and I must say the driver did a great job of keeping the horse under control. They were very fortunate not to get hit by the debris.

I was not so lucky. My truck was across the street in a parking lot and got side swiped by a huge piece of sheet metal. Fortunately it was driveable and the damage seems relatively superficial. Lots of scratches and gouges and a few dents. I saw many cars with all the glass blown out of them. Mine did not lose any glass. As soon as it was over I got in my car and picked my way through the debris and got the heck out of town before the emergency vehicles started arriving and streets got blocked off. Got home in time to see the reports on the news.

Unfortunately my truck is only 6 months old and was essentially brand new. Until now. Kind of annoying...

silvercamaro · #5 Post by **silvercamaro** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:56 pm

I'm glad you're okay, tan. The truck can be fixed.

tanstaafl2 · #6 Post by **tanstaafl2** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:08 pm

silvercamaro wrote:I'm glad you're okay, tan. The truck can be fixed.

Thanks! I am glad I am OK too. But it was kind of annoying as I was standing in the lobby and I am pretty sure I saw that piece of metal whip across the lot and slide into my truck. Hard to be sure with all the rain and debris flying about and I was also watching the guy trying to keep his horse from completely flipping out.

It appeared to slide right into the space between my car and the next one and when I finally got out there it was propped up against the truck as if it were tired.

Oh well, at least the truck was still functional and more or less intact. Many were not.

kayrharris · #7 Post by **kayrharris** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:27 pm

A little too close for comfort. I'm glad you're OK. It seems these things always happen to our NEW cars doesn't it? But vehicles can easily be repaired. It must have been quite frightening.

We usually get the same bad weather here first, but all we had was a bit of rain. We missed all the bad stuff. Your comprehensive coverage will take care of your damage. Just call your agent on Monday.

Ritterskoop · #8 Post by **Ritterskoop** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:09 pm

Two buildings collapsed (don't know what kind), and the CNN building and others had windows blown out.

SEC games might be moved tomorrow but my guess is, if there's little damage, they'll stay where they are.

peacock2121 · #9 Post by **peacock2121** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:07 am

The first thing Sting asked me this morning was:

"Is that guy from Atlanta still posting on your bored?"

He meant Ace, as he knows that is where Ace lives.

My thoughts are with all of the people in Atlanta and especially with our BBs there.

Hoping Ace and flock and deb and gsn are all okay as well.

tanstaafl2 · #10 Post by **tanstaafl2** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:01 am

Ritterskoop wrote:Two buildings collapsed (don't know what kind), and the CNN building and others had windows blown out.

SEC games might be moved tomorrow but my guess is, if there's little damage, they'll stay where they are.

My sense that where I was when it hit was not a tornado but it may have been near the edge of one that passed just south. Whatever it was it was freaky. When I had walked out of the theater lobby it was dead calm with a light misty rain. We were talking to some other folks when the wind came up without warning and within 30 seconds it was clear we needed to get out of it. You could hear the windows popping out and debris slamming around. I was right next to the Equitable building in town and it lost a lot of windows.

At least one building collapse was at the old cotton mills just southeast of downtown that had been converted to condos. The one that had the most damage was still partly under renovation. No one seriously hurt as of this AM anywhere in town according to reports so far which is fairly amazing.

If any one remembers the big fire in Atlanta 9 years ago where a crane operator got trapped and had to be rescued by a fireman dangling under a helicopter (was recently featured on on of the news shows as one of the 10 most amazing escapes from death, or something like that), that is the same complex where the collapse happened last night.

Not sure I would want to live there. Not superstitious but no need to push it...

silverscreenselect · #11 Post by **silverscreenselect** » Sun Mar 16, 2008 2:58 pm

The tornado hit downtown Atlanta and did very heavy damage in spots, including around the Georgia Dome and CNN Center. There are a lot of glass windows there that got blown out and people in the area were having to carry their dogs to makesure they didn't step on pieces of glass.

In a way it's lucky the tornado hit Friday night because that gives them the maximum amount of time to get things repaired enough for business to resume Monday morning, but I've heard figures of over $100 million in damage and I can believe it.

They moved the rest of the SEC tournament to the Georgia Tech arena which is about 2-3 miles from the worst of the damage. Ironically, Tech had a basketball game postponed last month because there was a roof leak from a heavy thunderstorm, but it's been fixed and the Tech campus wasn't hit. I live about ten miles from downtown and there were some nasty isolated thunderstorms but nothing bad. I was at the movies near where I live Friday night when the tornado hit and there really wasn't anything out of the ordinary going on other than some heavy rain.

When they moved the tournament from the Georgia Dome, where they had sold about 30,000 seats to Tech's arena, they limited seating to families of team members and school officials so there have only been about 2-3000 people in attendance. It's going to be a logistical nightmare for the schools to refund money to everyone for the tickets that weren't used. To make it worse, there's a lot of tickets that get sold on the streets after teams get eliminated from the tournament, and I'm guessing that anyone who bought them through a street scalper is going to be out of luck. I don't know if Stubhub will give any refunds either. Needless to say, the people who had the worst luck were those staying at the downtown hotels that got hit.

It doesn't appear that many people were hurt, although I did hear there was one fatality, so on that count it could have been a lot worse and that's something to be grateful for. If that storm had hit on a weekday afternoon, it could really have been a disaster.

Robyn · #12 Post by **Robyn** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:05 am

We have been watching the devastation and cleanup carefully, and hoping that things improve for the folks in Atlanta, and that the buildings are not demolished. Our FIRST Robotics team will be there for our Championship event April 17-19 and we have already heard that 40 of the approximately 350 teams coming to the area were set to stay at the Omni and the hotel coordinators are having a time relocating all the kids.

Our thoughts are constantly with the friendly Atlantans. Please come to the Georgia Dome in April to cheer the FIRST teams on, and to forget about the tornado...it's free and huge fun!

ne1410s · #13 Post by **ne1410s** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:39 am

Although there was officially no tornado associated with it, anyone who was at Busch Stadium on the evening of July 19th 2 years ago knows what it was like for a storm like this to pass through during a sold out event in an open air stadium. Absolutely fascinating to watch, but downright scary in terms of the amount of danger it posed to everyone in attendance....

Amen, brother, I have the pix showing the tarp tearing and the air saturated with dust. Eerie.