A severe thunderstorm, which may have spawned a tornado, has claimed one life and caused significant structure damage to homes, garages, and outbuildings in the Cookeville Highway area.
County Fire Chief Donny Green told WJLE that damage assessments are still underway. “We’re in the Cookeville Highway area and we have what appears to be a tornado touchdown. It may have touched down in a couple of areas of the county, one being off of Holiday Haven Drive, where it looks like we have a confirmed fatality. The second being at the end of Puckett’s Point. We’re trying to investigate at this time to see if it was the same tornado. Apparently we’ve also had significant damage in the falling water area which is around Johnson’s Chapel. We have responders here from our county and from adjoining counties. We’re still in the assessment phase. We’ve had significant structure damage but no reports of other injuries other than the fatality,” said Chief Green.
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The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for DeKalb County at 3:46 p.m. and central dispatch/911 received the first reports of damage two minutes later.
Local veterinarian Dr. Scott Little said he was at his residence on Ponder Lane when the storm struck “There was the weirdest noise. In fact my father texted me and said there’s a weird sound outside. And there certainly was. I got the kids up and put them into a closet. I was looking out the windows to see what was going on. When the wind started blowing really hard I went and got back in the closet and I guess it wasn’t sixty seconds later when I came back out that all the trees all around the house were blown down. They say it (tornado) sounds like a train and that is certainly what it sounded like. It was a constant sound. It wasn’t like anything I’ve ever heard. The sound lasted for maybe about two minutes and it was hard to tell where it was coming from. I would assume it was just the sound of the wind,” said Dr. Little
While the wind destroyed a garage belonging to his nearest neighbor Ronnie Burton, Dr. Little said his home didn’t get much damage. “It blew a window out but there wasn’t much damage to the house at all. A lot of trees around the house fell down,” he said
No one on Ponder Lane was injured
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