I was so sad to learn today that Masai, the 18-year-old lioness at the zoo passed away yesterday from illness and old age. She had battled upper respiratory problems and anemia the last few months. I took the photo of her above prior to Sam’s birth, and that image, along with several others, hang in his room today. We always enjoyed seeing her on the occasion that she’d show herself to visitors, and know that she will be missed. The AJC reports that she is not going to be replaced, as there are three other adults, plus three cubs born recently to a younger lioness. That’s plenty of lion for anybody. We are looking forward to seeing those cubs out and about soon.
Category Archives: atlanta
Atlanta’s Downtown Twister
So we thought living ITP would keep us free of the trailer-park loving cyclonic activity we usually think of out in the hinterlands. Well, not so much. The photo above is not by me – it was taken by photographer Shane Durrence and shown by WXIA here in Atlanta and shows, backlit by lightning, the tornado on the ground over downtown at the far left of the image.
We got the tornado warning (SMS from wunderground.com) about five minutes before it hit on Friday night. It was a fairly generic notice – for the whole county – so I wasn’t really worried, didn’t grab the kids etc. as they were asleep. In seconds the rain began to pound and swirl, and then we heard that classic freight train sound. I actually went out on our back deck to grab some things that were flying around – silly me. And then it was done. Turns out that the 200-yard-wide EF2 tornado (estimated winds of 135mph) had carved a path from the west side of the Georgia Dome (the Vine City neighborhood) onward over the dome, ripping sections of the roof away just as it did about ten years ago when I was there covering a game (designed that way?) then right over the Ga World Congress Center and past CNN Center and Centennial Park. That side of CNN and the Omni had dozens of windows blown out – including ones just feet from my friend Steve Almasy, one of the handful of folks working at 9:45pm on Friday night in the CNN.com newsroom and near my friend Kate Sandhaus’ desk. The twister then went past Centennial Tower, the Georgia Pacific Building, the Westin Peachtree Tower and the Equitable – taking out many windows, interestingly mostly on upper floors. Then the storm headed towards us – taking the roof off parts of the Cotton Mill Lofts and then destroying close to 20 homes in the Cabbagetown neighborhood – but sparing Sam’s preschool, the Grant Park Cooperative campus in C-town, only a block away from the worst damage. Then the tornado crossed over I-20 and hit parts of East Atlanta, coming less than 1/2 mile from our house – we were really lucky.
The second round of twisters that came through North GA on Saturday had us taking things quite seriously, holed up in an interior closet for the duration of the warnings. That only resulted in 1/4″ hail without much other damage at our place – but two deaths in a rural county near Atlanta. Weather is serious business.
Safe and Sound
Thankfully, my family is OK after what will likely be confirmed as a tornado of some strength took a path over the Georgia Dome, CNN Center, Edgewood and then Cabbagetown, just 1/2 mile or so away from our home in Grant Park. Photo above shows the front of CNN Center, as shot by Flickr user ScottAtlanta82. Another Flickr photo below by Lance McCord shows the debris scattered across the main drag of Cabbagetown – hopefully Sam’s school didn’t suffer any damage [Amy didn’t want me going out to shoot myself tonight, otherwise you’d see some photos of mine ;-)] No one was injured at CNN.com thankfully when the windows blew out – including my buddy Steve Almasy who happened to be sitting closest to the windows. I think my friend Kate Sandhaus‘ desk may be quite soaked when she heads into work on Monday – her cube looked right out to the park near the CNN Center sign.
I was at home with the family, and had pulled up the radar and noted that it looked like a small but intense storm heading our way. It looked like the ‘hook’ in the radar was going to float right over us, and when it began to storm, we heard the classic sound – just like a freight train at some distance, likely whatever was happening at CNN at that moment around 3 miles away. I foolishly went out onto the porch to grab a few loose items that looked like they might fly off – and all I was thinking about was lightning. Not terribly bright on my part, eh? It sounds like the Cotton Mill lofts in Cabbagetown could be the scene of the worst of this – with roofs being torn from three buildings and some collapses in some units – with people potentially missing. I’m hoping for the best. It’s so odd – there is literally zero sign of anything here at our house – just some damp pavement. I’m praying that there are no serious injuries, and thankful that it wasn’t worse – especially with probably 100k folks at the Georgia Dome when the roof began to peel away, just like it did when I was shooting a football game there in the mid-90s.
