ATLANTA — The National Weather Service says four tornadoes touched down on Wednesday, leaving a trail of damage in metro Atlanta and north Georgia.
Severe Weather Team 2 Meteorologist Brad Nitz said a confirmed EF-1 tornado southwest of Atlanta was 3/4 mile long and about 100 yards long. The twister had 100 mph winds.
An EF-0 tornado was confirmed in Alpharetta near Windward Parkway and the Big Creek area. The tornado had winds of 80 mph.
A third tornado, an EF-1, was confirmed in Buckhead.
The fourth confirmed tornado was in Commerce.
Storms on Wednesday left a trail of damage in their paths and in metro Atlanta roadways.
Temple in Carroll County saw damage first, with the storm moving through Haralson and Paulding counties as well. The Six Flags area in Cobb County saw damage, as well as through Vinings and into the center of Buckhead.
Johns Creek, Cumming and Buford areas also saw damage.
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No injuries have been reported from the storms, which knocked down trees and power lines across the metro area.
Thousands of customers were without power Wednesday night. Power has since been restored to most customers, according to Georgia Power.
Cobb County businesses were without power for hours as crews worked for more than 8 hours to restore it.
In Mableton, “swirling winds” pulled down stoplights and knocked a tree onto a gas station.
“All of a sudden, I saw a very dark wind coming from the other side. I was scared. I couldn’t even look at it,” said Ruth Ajbogua, who was sitting at Mableton Parkway and Lee Industrial as the tornado moved through.
‘It was just shaking. The whole door was shaking,” she said.
Workers at the nearby Elite Children Learning Center said they quickly huddled the children in a safe room.
“It was so much wind. Everything was flying. It was bad,” Robin Cook said.
Businesses like Los Prado's along Mableton Parkway told Channel 2’s Nefertiti Jaquez the storm left the business without power for at least two hours.
"It was a lot of wind. My girlfriend says she was ringing up here, when she saw the thing that flew off and landed that way," owner Rodolfo Prado told Jaquez.
The thing his wife was referring to was a part of a metal roof that flew off a nearby recycling center and landed at a QuikTrip gas station up the road.
Hayden Patton, a technician with AT&T, said the scrap of metal wrapped around a pole and forced the entire area, which is mainly composed of businesses, to lose power for several hours.
“Once the power crews get finished, we will go in and reattach the telephone lines to the polls and get them back going for everybody,” Patton said.
In East Cobb, several trees blocked roads and power was out in some neighborhoods.
In Buckhead, several trees fell across roads.
Crews quickly worked to remove large trees blocking Arden and Habersham roads. Several trees also fell in the area of Northside Drive and Moores Mill Road.
Neighbor William Fragakis spent the evening watching power crews in his front yard working to get power back to the neighborhood.
"Kind of the idle thought that if you look at something, it will happen faster than if you don't look at something," Fragakis told Channel 2’s Justin Wilfon.
Contractor Troy Willson told Wilfon he rode out the storm in a home he was working on, in the safest place possible.
"We were down in the basement looking up at it. The trees just started swaying pretty heavy and the leaves just started going in big circles and it was done," Willson said.
In Duluth, a tree fell on a home on Tina Court while a man was inside.
“My uncle’s room is all damaged,” Jannett Vidal said. “I got really scared because the next room is my room and I have a son. He’s almost 2 years and, you know, imagine if we were home.”
Her brother-in-law, who was in the house at the time, was not hurt.
In northwest Atlanta, neighbors along East Wood Valley Road near Moores Mill Road told Channel 2’s Carl Willis they saw debris swirling in the wind.
“She ran down to the basement and saw some of our back deck chair swirling in the wind, so she took the baby in the basement and rode it out down there,” homeowner Rusty Cullen said about his wife.
The aftermath of the storm left a small patch of power outages in the area, trees down and Cullen’s family SUV smashed under the weight of a giant oak tree.
“I was just glad they were in the basement and everyone was safe. Really, that was all that was important,” Cullen told Willis.