Atlanta tornado discussion

[fatjoe3833]

CNN reports damage to the Georgia Dome.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/0...ies&eref=yahoo

[JB987]

Just saw a short news report from CNN minutes ago stating that a possible tornado has damaged some portions of the Georgia Dome (atrium, etc...) any confirmation from other sources out there?

[1t5h1e1o]

Wow it got the CNN center too. Hope they can fix this fast!!! FRC + Water = .........fail (well so far )

[Nawaid Ladak]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/0...ado/index.html

confirmed, saw this a couple of minutes ago too came to post and got cought up with other things...

on a lighter note, CNN would ovbiously know this...

article

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A possible tornado swept through downtown Atlanta on Friday night, disrupting a college basketball game and damaging the building that houses CNN.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The National Weather Service had issued a tornado warning for the area, in effect until 10 p.m. The storm came through at about 9:45 p.m.

Inside CNN Center, water poured through damage in the ceiling into the building's atrium. Glass shattered, and parts of the building filled with dust.

Next door at the Georgia Dome, the SEC conference basketball game between Alabama and Mississippi State was halted. The storm visibly rippled the ceiling of the dome and caused some damage, video of the arena showed. Scaffolding holding the facility's scoreboard swayed 15 minutes after the storm hit.

[Nawaid Ladak]

i'll have pics up in a couple mins

: no GA dome pics on CNN, only CNN Center. passable damage to Phillips Arena too

i wouldn't doubt the GWCC got hit as well

pic

[dangerousdave]

These are preliminary reports only. Local Atlanta news reports that The GA Dome roof has held up and not torn to allow water inside. After stopping play, the SEC Basketball tournament continued but the last game has been postponed. On TV we now see water pouring down the stairs in the GA World Congress Center Building C (next months pit location) after a water main break. The dome roof catwalks were noticeably swaying around 10PM EDT. Some walls on the outside of the Dome are slightly damaged. The walkway between the old Omni Hotel and the newer one is damaged on the bottom. The Peachtree Plaza hotel has some windows blown out on the backside of it.

About 8 people taken to Grady Hospital, with one reported in critical condition.

Atlanta TV links to perhaps get updated info: WSB, WXIA, Fox 5, WGNX
Dave

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by dangerousdave

These are preliminary reports only. Local Atlanta news reports that The GA Dome roof has held up and not torn to allow water inside. The SEC Basketball tournament is continuing in the Dome after the catwalks were noticeably swaying. Some portions of the outside of the Dome are slightly damaged. The walkway between the old Omni Hotel and the newer one is damaged on the bottom. The Peachtree Plaza hotel has some windows blown out on the backside of it. There are also some reports of damage to the World Congress Center which is where the "pits" are located. However, they are on the very bottom of the buildings which are about 3 story's high, where damage is less likely.

Again, these are preliminary reports. So far the pictures we can see at night do not show damage in my opinion to keep future events from being held. This of course could change as reports come in and daylight shines on the buildings.
Dave

the SEC Basketball broadcast showed damage outside the GA dome, and reported flooding in the GWCC.

[ALIBI]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200....ap/index.html

This show a picture of damage to the main concourse. It sounds like everyone inside is OK.

[santosh]

On a side note, nobody at the peachtree regional has been harmed and the weather is fineish here.
Some reports have said that there are a lot of windows that have been blown out at the omni.

[technoL]

Perhaps we'll get that water game faster than we thought...

On a more serious note, I hope everything's alright up there. We just turned on CNN in our room and saw the damage and it doesn't look too good.

[Coredesat]

Looked pretty scary on the feed I was watching at the time. Someone was kind enough to upload a video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4K5e9wqVB8

[KarenH]

Originally Posted by Nawaid Ladak

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/0...ado/index.html

on a lighter note, CNN would ovbiously know this...

article

"...Inside CNN Center, water poured through damage in the ceiling into the building's atrium. Glass shattered, and parts of the building filled with dust."

Last year, my husband and I had a room in the Omni Hotel that had a less than desirable view into the atrium. We couldn't even see the teams dining in the food court. When there was a thunderstorm outside, I had no clue it was happening, because there was no outside view. If a tornado like this one had struck when we were in our room, we would have known about it.

I've long wondered if all those imposing downtown Atlanta buildings were designed to resist Georgia's violent weather. I guess now we know the answer.

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by technoL

Perhaps we'll get that water game faster than we thought...

On a more serious note, I hope everything's alright up there. We just turned on CNN in our room and saw the damage and it doesn't look too good.

Hope all is well and no one got hurt.

If there is water.....we are ready!

www.h2orobots.org

[Mihai]

I hope everyone is ok.

From what I read in the yahoo! article it doesn't seem like there is enough damage to greatly affect the Championship event.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080315/.../atlanta_storm

Anybody know more specifics?

[GaryVoshol]

A report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met...ge_tab_newstab

Fortunately it sounds like few injuries.