BrianHursey.com

Well a tornado hit my wife’s school. Don’t worry no one was hurt. My wife works at Oakwood Elementary School in Oakwood Ga in Hall county. She already was at home. However the after school program was still in session. The school did a very good job in getting every one to safe areas in the school to protect them from the storm. They had an interesting day while I was at work 30 miles away. About 3:30 a F1 tornado hit the school causing major damage to the first grade wing. This made four classrooms un inhabitable.  The path was a half a mile long and ran parallel to Thurmon Tanner Pkwy crossing Chamblee Rd and then finally crossing Oak and Allen Street in old town Oakwood hitting the school. I have a couple crappy photos of the damage with my cell phone taken while I drove Down Allen Street past the school. However the video link is much more impressive. It is of the actual tornado as it moves toward the school. Yesterday after watching the video I drove down Thurmon Tanner Pkwy and sure enough behind all of the industrial buildings you could see a path of tree damage. I don’t know what it is about storms and me but I feel they are very interesting and I get excited about them. Especially since this was only one mile from my house.

Video Link 

Tree damage across from the school:   Baseball complex building roof damage: 

News story

Well we has some super cells came through the aria. They were lined up like a train cars, two of them came through oakwood ga producing winds, hail, and torrential rain that caused localized flooding of streets. The first cell me and my dog were in the bathroom under the stairs. We heard hail and banging for 4 min and than came out.  The second cell about 20 -40 min later, I got locked out of my house and truck when the second cell came through the area. My wife talked me into trying to make it 1 mile down the road to a friends basement where she was.  So I grabbed my dog and in a big hurry to get out of the door and make it to that house in 6 min. I locked my self out of the house and out of the car. So with my dog in the car and my self locked out I only could seek refuge in the garage. I left the door open so I could keep a eye of my dog and my car. Wore a hard back "Unix Network Programing" book as a hat and prayed. I knew the book would come in handy one day.  It was a very intense rainfall and hail storm.  I did get quite worried because channel 2 was piloting a coarse of a tornado towards the general direction of my neighborhood.   So I survived, scared my wife to death when she heard me in the garage and not able to into the house. 

I have always been fascinated by severe storms.  I knew I should not of left. I did not feel safe with out a basement.  Moral of the story is do not leave your house in storms. 

 CNN saw my pictures I submitted and selected them for CNN. They called me and asked me if they could use them I agreed. I dont know where they put them. Here are the links and the photos I submitted. 

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4035

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4034

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-4033 

First Super cell:

Second Super Cell:(Stuck in garage)