ELLABELL, Ga. (AP) – A house built in southeast Georgia decades before the Civil War is now a gutted shell after being struck by a tornado.
Owners Richard and Wendy Analla say it took mere seconds for the twister to tear the upper floor off their home when it ripped through Bryan County on April 5. Now their property is littered with splintered wood and debris from a house built nearly two centuries ago in 1830.
The couple took shelter in a downstairs bathroom when the storm struck.
“We heard the wind and felt the house shake, the metal and the wood,” Richard Analla told WTOC-TV. “As quickly as it got here, it was gone.”
The same tornado killed a woman, 66-year-old Belinda Thompson, and destroyed at least 18 homes in the county west of Savannah. Dozens of friends from their church volunteered to help the Anallas clean up after the storm passed.