NAHUNTA, Ga. — Neighbors in a Nahunta, Georgia neighborhood are still recovering two days after an EF-2 tornado damaged several houses.
Roof pieces and insulation could be seen high in the trees along Matthew Circle.
“We get tornado warnings a lot, but we’ve never seen them," said Rita Mathis, whose home was flipped by the tornado. "We’ve never seen anything like that.”
On a typical Saturday, Rita Mathis would’ve been inside her new trailer on Matthew Circle, getting it ready to move into.
But on this particular Saturday, she just happened to be at an event with her church while the trailer was picked up by a tornado, flipped over and thrown against some trees.
“Material possessions, they can be taken away at any time, so it didn’t matter," said Mathis. "I’m very grateful that we’re alive.”
The National Weather Service confirmed it was an EF-2 tornado that hit Mathis’s home, with winds peaking at 130 miles an hour.
The Brantley County manager estimates about a dozen homes were damaged, with two, including Mathis’s, destroyed.
EMTs treated minor injuries, with no one transported to the hospital.
“We were at the store, by the time we got back, it was already done and over with," said Chris Robeson, who lives in the neighborhood.
Robeson lives right up the road from Mathis, so he had to pass by all the damage on the drive back to his home from the store.
Somehow, his home was untouched.
“It was a total relief because some people can’t recover from this," said Robeson.
Robeson and several others in the neighborhood have spent days helping their neighbors hit the hardest with the cleanup.
“It is reinforcement to know we can pull together and get through this," said Robeson.
Fortunately, Mathis has another trailer on the property she can stay at in the meantime.
She’s managed to stay positive through it all.
“I didn’t cry, I didn’t get upset," said Mathis. "It’s well with my soul, that’s all that matters.”
The county manager estimates the tornado also took out 300 trees, so Brantley County crews were on the roads Monday, clearing debris to make them passable.