Winds Rip Through Area

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Heavy rains and strong wind gusts blew through the region on Sunday afternoon, January 25, wreaking havoc and destroying a historic Wheeler County church. Wheeler County Emergency Management Agency Director Steve Adams said that he believes it was straight-line winds that ripped the roof off of the historic Landsburg Methodist Church, located along Georgia continued from page

Highway 19, just 5 miles west of Glenwood. “95% of the time, straight line winds cause the damage that we see most. Once those winds reach around 40 miles per hour, they are very destructive,” he remarked.

Landsburg Methodist Church Pastor Gene Yates shared that the winds demolished the church’s front porch, peeled back most of the church’s roof, and flipped a utility building upside down. The damage was caught on a nearby Ring doorbell camera, and showcased the moment that the winds took over the structure.

The interior of the church’s sanctuary suffered sever water damage and will require extensive replacement. The event took place after Sunday services and no one was injured.

“God will provide and we will keep on going,” Yates emphasized.

The church is an image of Wheeler County history, as Church Member Maria Dixon explained that the house of worship previously sat on private property across the road from where it is now, but was moved across the road to its current location with a team of oxen in the late 1800s or early 1900s. She explained that the food bank – which remains standing amidst the storm’s destruction – was given to the church by Wheeler County, as it was previously used as a voting booth.

Landsburg Methodist Church has around 33 active members, who will now temporarily relocate to Glenwood Methodist Church, located at 135 West Fourth Avenue in Glenwood, who has opened its door to the Landsburg Congregation to hold their services beginning at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday.

Winds also brought downed trees and power outages, as a total of 560 Altamaha EMC customers were out of power on Sunday afternoon, with the largest outage occurring in the area near Taylor Springs Road, which spreads across the northern end of Montgomery and Toombs Counties, due to a large tree falling on a threephase line in the area, and in the Normantown area, where 653 meters were left without power. All outages were restored by 9 p.m. on Sunday.