This weekend was a wild one in the ATL. For anyone who hasn’t looked at a TV or newspaper or um, anything of that sort, Atlanta and the surrounding area of Georgia was hit by barrage after barrage of severe thunderstorms and tornados this weekend. Friday night, a twister hit downtown Atlanta, striking in the core of the Tourism area (The GA Dome, CNN Center, Centennial Olympic Park…) causing major damage to the World Congress Center, the GA Dome, the park, CNN Center and surrounding downtown hotels and businesses. Several of the finer hotels in the area suffered damages as well loosing windows and more in the freak weather.

I happened to be lucky that night. I was up in the Hockey Press boxes at Phillips arena, getting ready to climb to the catwalk over the center of the arena floor to dismantle the propane used for the flame effects we were doing for the Atlanta Hawks (who won by the way). Not more than 100 yards away a tornado was busy destroying the GA dome, cnn center and other areas. Somehow, it managed to skip right by (over?) us and leave us unharmed. Lucky we were. Of course, it took a little longer to get home that night.

Saturday wasn’t much better, we were stuck in doors most of the day playing duck and cover every other hour as storm after storm blew through the area. Luckily no one in our area was hurt. Others weren’t so lucky. I heard on the news last night about a photograph, from a house in Rockmart, GA (where a man lost his life) that was found in Cornelia GA, 129 miles away from its home. Carried all that way by the wind. Can you imagine??

Atlanta will be rebuilding for a while, and while the economy will be hit in some areas, its good for those construction crews looking to keep their hammers going for a bit.

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