Hey!
All is well here. I don't think anyone was seriously hurt.
The roof was damaged at Lyman Hall Elementary, which is on the south side of town. One of the giant AC units on the roof was thrown around. :shock: I heard a blurb that another elementary school in south Hall (Oakwood Elementary) had some damage, too.
My classroom is actually in the primo tornado shelter at our school--I'm underground--but we didn't have any sirens during the school day. During the afternoon activity time, I had my drumline practicing in the band room and heard the PA blaring. I ran out of my office and hearded my boys into the practice rooms--we were hearing the security director repeating, "This is not a drill. Go to the nearest shelter. This is not a drill, this is not a drill..."
My boys were funny--my drumline captain is quite the Alpha male, and we had only been shut in the back room a minute or two when he asked, "Ma'am, since we're stuck here, can we work on putting the drums together?" I had to laugh--they just got new marching drums, and they're like kids at Christmas. They worked on putting them together for the next half hour until we got the all clear.
My mom called (we never lost power, and my office was pretty safe) from the dentist office bathroom and said that my sister-in-law was in the basement, but that she didn't know where my niece was. The storms hit just as school was being dismissed. It turns out that she had been put on the bus in the pouring rain only to be taken back off--she got home at about 5:00 cold, wet, and hungry.
My sister-in-law told me that she thought there was a tornado just after lunch between my house and theirs, so I went to check it out. Sure enough, there is
a neighborhood about 3 miles from here that looks like (pardon the expression) it had been hit by a tornado. Virtually every house had trees that were either uprooted or snapped in half. Huge trees...amazing.
I take my graduate classes in Habersham County and they have reported almost 12" of rain since Sunday. Dahlonega (about 10 miles from where I live) had between 9 and 10". Gainesville is only reporting just under 4", but my dad says that he had between 7 and 8" in his rain guage.
So we're okay...thanks for asking!
