Lightning set Gwinnett house ablaze, 4 tornadoes formed during storms

Thunderstorms charged through metro Atlanta at 50 mph overnight, producing lightning that set a Gwinnett County home ablaze and four tornadoes that tore down trees across three different counties, according to authorities.

Gwinnett fire officials said the lightning struck at around 2 a.m. Wednesday, just a couple of hours after several tornado watches and warnings were issued across North Georgia. The most intense part of the storms, which dropped between 1-2 inches of rain and produced strong winds and hail, hit the area between 11:30 p.m. and 4 a.m., according to the National Weather Service and Channel 2 Action News meteorologists.

When firefighters arrived at the Grouse Court home, flames were billowing from the attic. Crews were searching the house to ensure everyone had gotten out safely when its roof collapsed and injured a firefighter, officials said. He had to be helped out by fellow crew members. He was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital and has since been released. No others were injured.

By 2:30 a.m., the fire was under control, the fire department said. The people who lived there told firefighters their teenage son was still awake when the lightning struck above the kitchen, so he saw the flames and woke up the rest of the family.

The American Red Cross is helping 11 people displaced by the fire, officials said.

In the south metro, an EF1 tornado touched down in extreme northeastern Spalding around 3:40 a.m. Wednesday, the Weather Service confirmed. It knocked over some trees and ripped the roof off a large barn. Near the barn, two people were asleep in a recreational vehicle when they said it was lifted off the ground and slammed back down.

The twister continued into Henry County and then into Butts County, snapping and uprooting trees along the way.

In northern metro Atlanta, an EF0 tornado lasted for about four minutes shortly after midnight Wednesday in Cherokee County, the Weather Service announced. Several trees were snapped as the twister tore through Waleska.

In Gordon County, located in far northwest Georgia, two EF0 tornadoes touched down around 11:40 p.m. Tuesday in areas southeast of Calhoun, according to the NWS. During the first tornado, parts of the roof of a chicken coop were torn off, and several trees fell onto homes. The second tornado ripped the roof and walls off a barn and uprooted trees.

Winds there whipped so strong that porch furniture was rearranged at a home on East Plainview Road.

“I peeked out the door, and all of a sudden it just hit like a gale force,” homeowner Justin Henderson told Channel 2.

“The wind was blowing one way, then the wind started coming another way, and it just started pushing everything,” he recounted to the news station. “Cracking of the trees, the furniture and debris coming across the porch.”