HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — A Henry County woman is sharing her dismay after she says a shipping container filled with her furniture and priceless heirlooms fell off the back of a tow truck. The impact destroyed her belongings, she said.
Sterline Covington had just moved into her new home when she expected a shipping container from McMeans Leasing in Conley to be delivered with her belongings inside. But what she witnessed in her driveway last Saturday left her devastated.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Covington told Channel 2 Investigative Reporter Ashli Lincoln. “All my stuff, all my grandmother’s stuff, gone in seconds.”
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Cell phone video captured the emotional moment Covington watched the container tip over, slamming onto the pavement. The impact shattered heirlooms, crushed furniture and ruined irreplaceable family possessions.
“I said, ‘Jesus, have mercy,’ because it was the sound,” she recalled.
Covington said she was alerted by the noise outside her home. When she ran to see what was happening, the container had already begun to tip.
“It made even more noise and more destruction being flipped back over,” she said.
Surveillance video from a neighbor shows the moment the container slid off the truck.
Covington says the operator who delivered the container told her he towed cars — not shipping containers.
“He asked me to look inside, got his straps and chains, and just drove off,” she said. “There was no response, no apology — nothing.”
After repeated attempts to contact the company, Channel 2 Action News reached out to McMeans Leasing. While the company did not respond to our inquiries, Covington says that after our outreach, she finally heard from them.
In an email, the company claimed the terms of the agreement required Covington to obtain insurance coverage and assume the risk of any loss. Covington, however, says the insurance she purchased only covered the shipping container, not her belongings inside.
“They’re only offering to refund the $247 delivery fee,” she said. “That’s only because I contacted Channel 2. Otherwise, I would’ve gotten nothing.”
Now, Covington is left picking through the wreckage of shattered glass, broken furniture and crushed memories.
“The fact that a lot of it is destroyed — glass, pictures, furniture — it hurts,” she said.
Covington says she’s still trying to figure out her next steps. For now, she’s focused on salvaging what little she can from the debris, including family pieces that are impossible to replace.
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