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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Sometimes, when fierce weather approaches there's nothing left to do but pray.

"When Mama came down to Atlanta to visit us, I was hoping the weather would stay nice while she was here - but I wasn't worried.

NOAA Photo Library, NSSL Collection: Photo: C. Clark

Larry Wilkerson is a columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

 I remember her first night here last Spring: A storm had been brewing all evening, and by midnight, the sky was black as ink and lightning was flashing a hundred times a minute.

Then came the bulletin: Funnel clouds in Gwinnett County, where we live. I shook Mama and my wife and little girl awake and hurried them downstairs. With the wind roaring and the windows rattling, Mama started praying, the way she'd prayed her way through a thousand bad storms back home in Kentucky. Maybe it wasn't a tornado that hit our neighborhood - some say it was only wind shear, but it was fierce, whatever it was.

At daybreak, I went outside expecting to find siding and shingles in our yard, but the wind had only scattered some branches and turned over a couple of deck chairs.

Just up the street, though, tall, thick pines had been snapped and neighbors' roofs had been ripped away. Over on Old Peachtree Road, a poultry barn was flattened, and a pontoon boat was flipped over.