Conyers tornado: Residents say they didn't get emergency alert
ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. - Cleanup continues in Rockdale County following an EF-2 tornado that tore through the area Tuesday night. But now, questions are being raised about how residents were alerted to the storm.
County leaders say a total of 77 homes in the area were damaged or destroyed.
"My house was shaking so hard and so bad. It scared me," Gwendolyn Victor said.
Gwendolyn Victor was asleep Tuesday night when she got an alert on her phone around 11:52 p.m. that a tornado was heading her way.
"It was a matter of seconds. That's when I heard ‘boom, boom, boom, boom.’ That was it," Victor said.
She says it's possible that alert saved her life.
"I'd been still sleep and ain't no telling what would have happened," she explained.
But not all residents in the area got a phone alert as the storm moved through. County leaders say it's an automated process, and they've opened an investigation with the state to find out what happened.
"It could have been a service outage. It could have been a specific carrier. We just aren't sure yet," Meredith Barnum, Deputy Director with Rockdale County EMA, said.
"We cannot always guarantee that there won't be a power outage or a service outage or some other reason that intercepts that technology component, which is why we always encourage people to get a weather radio and have it in their home," she added.
There also weren't any tornado sirens that went off. The county has nine sirens installed and said they are working on licensing to get them up and running by the summer. It's a project they've been working on over the last year.
"It's up to each individual county to determine if sirens work best for their community. In rural communities they're very uncommon because they don't have as big of a reach as people think they do," Barnum said.
"But now that we're starting to have bigger booms of population moving in, we can kind of see that sound traveling more," she added.
As for the downed trees throughout the community, the county is planning on bringing in heavy equipment starting Monday to get them removed.
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County leaders on the ground Saturday told FOX 5 Atlanta they plan to step up efforts to make sure everyone gets alerts in the future.
"I think there's an opportunity for more education and information coming from county government to educate our citizens and residents here more about how to engage or how to participate in the alert system that we have here in Rockdale County," Oz Nesbitt, Chairman and CEO of Rockdale County, explained.
If you did not receive an alert on your phone Tuesday night, you're asked to contact emasocialmedia@rockdalecountyga.gov with your carrier information and cell phone number.
Rockdale County residents can also sign up for the county alert system ROCKWARN by texting "ROCKDALE" to 67283.