The city of Newnan, homeowners still dealing with deadly tornado damage a year later

NEWNAN, Ga. — A year after a deadly tornado swept through the city of Newnan, some homeowners are still dealing with the cleanup.

Channel 2′s Ashli Lincoln spoke with frustrated homeowners to determine why repairs have taken so long.

“I’ve grown up in Oklahoma my whole life and you have tons of tornadoes. I’ve never actually been in a home where a tornado hit,” said resident Joshua Guthmann.

Joshua Guthmann says on March 25, he and his wife woke to a powerful tornado tearing through their neighborhood.

Winds from the tornado reached up to 170 miles per hour.

“It was like a washer machine, just gray and water and chaos going on,” Guthmann said.

“We were very fortunate to get out when we did.”

His home is one of several properties still in disarray after the EF4 tornado ripped through Newnan last year.

“This isn’t a situation where we’re not just doing anything. This has been a battle with the insurance company,” Guthmann said.

Guthmann says dealing with bad contractors and an insurance company that’s not interested in paying for home repairs have been the main reason there hasn’t been any progress on the home.

“It makes you wonder, we have a policy with a very well-known (name), you see their ads on TV all the time and you think all right, they should take care of you,” Guthmann said.

This week, the city of Newnan set a 45-day deadline to demolish abandoned properties damaged from the tornado.

Guthmann, frustrated with his insurance, says they’ve decided to just sell their house and move.

“We at one point were thinking about expanding this house, really making it nice, making it our permanent home,” Guthman said.

Along with putting those abandoned properties on notice before demolition, we also learned the Georgia Forestry Commission has donated trees to help grow back the tree canopy, to replace the treetops wiped out by the tornado.

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A year later, survivors of Newnan tornado continue to recover

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