THOMASVILLE — Crews scattered across Thomasville cleaning up the wreckage of Wednesday night’s storm and others have been assessing the damage throughout the county.

No injuries or fatalities were reported in Thomas County from the evening of tornados that swept through southwest Georgia. Two separate tornado warnings were issued for Thomas County on Wednesday night. The first was issued around 7:40 p.m. and the second came about three hours later. 

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee, Florida confirmed a tornado touched down on the southside of Thomasville on Wednesday night. A survey team from the NWS is coming to Thomasville to assess the damage and the storm’s strength.

The NWS office in Tallahassee also will be sending a team to Barwick, where suspected tornadoes struck east of the town in Brooks County.

Trees were reported down across the south side of Thomasville. Trees were knocked down on top of houses along Fletcher Street, and Varnedoe Stadium, where the Thomas University baseball team plays, was heavily damaged. 

Fletcher Street resident Bobby Harris heard the storm and looked outside and reacted quickly.

“We were getting a lot of hard rain,” he said. “The wind was blowing hard. I looked outside and saw stuff whirling around.”

The sound of the storm resembled that of a train, Harris said. 

“I just was caught off guard,” he said. “It shook me. I ran through the living room, picked up my boots and got in the bathroom.”

His next-door neighbor, Seiji Cason, had a tree hit her home and her daughter’s car parked out front. 

“We had a warning that a tornado was coming through and the next thing you know, the lights went out and boom,” she said. “It was a mess.”

Cason said she didn’t hear the snapping of the tree but heard its result.

“I just heard the loud boom,” she said.

Across Varnedoe Street from the baseball field, the Thomasville Community Resource Center was untouched. 

Because of the storm damage, TU canceled all on-campus classes for Thursday.

Thomas County Emergency Management Agency’s Lisa Griffis said the first tornado struck Barwick and the second one, about 12:15 a.m. Thursday, hit the south side of Thomasville. 

The tornado that hit Barwick then hopped into Brooks County, Griffis said. It damaged a home along Highway 33 south of Barwick — the home of county EMS director Tim Coram. 

When Coram heard the tornado warning, he ushered his wife and grandchildren into a bathroom for safety. 

“I thought, ‘it’ll be over in a minute,’” Coram said. 

But as the tornado approached, the conditions turned quiet, he said. 

“It got real still. Then it got real real,” he said. 

He had just come in from the house’s back door and tried to open the back door again, but the now plummeting air pressure outside wouldn’t let him, he said. 

“I’m glad it didn’t,” Coram said.

Coram estimated the tornado was at his house for no more than 30 seconds. When it was over, it had knocked down a large tree in his yard and demolished three barns. 

“One barn I haven’t even found yet,” he said. 

His family came through the event without a scratch. 

The tornado lifted a boat in its trailer out a barn and dumped it in a nearby field — with the boat still in the trailer. It took a utility trailer loaded with hay and deposited it elsewhere and upside down — with the hay still in the trailer.

There was also damage to his patio and the shingles on his roof. 

“It also turned my pool house upside down,” Coram said.

When Thursday morning came, Coram said there were three tractors and a bunch of people, many he hadn’t seen in years, in his yard, ready to help clean up the tornado’s debris.

“That’s the most amazing thing out of the whole thing,” he said. “I was dumbfounded — I didn’t know where to start.”

A National Weather Service representative visited Coram’s house Friday and told him it was likely an EF-1 tornado with wind speeds of 110 mph. The winds were strong enough to push Coram’s work truck, a large Ram pickup, 10 feet across his yard. 

Griffis said about 40 residences in Thomasville and in the county were affected by the storm. 

“The damage ranges from some shingles being torn off to four homes that have major damage,” she said. 

The first tornado knocked down two trees in the county and damaged parts of Mitchell Road. 

The City of Thomasville closed Balfour Park as crews worked to restore power lines and remove fallen trees along South Pinetree Boulevard. 

Thomasville Utilities about 20 outages remaining as of early Friday afternoon.