HENRY COUNTY, Ga. — Residents are recalling the moments they saw a tornado touch down in their Henry County neighborhood and the subsequent search for an injured man.
NewsChopper 2 flew over Fresh Laurel Lane where an EF-2 tornado destroyed a home on Thursday afternoon.
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Malachi Chaney, 18, was thrown 300 feet from the house and severely injured. He remains in critical condition at Grady Memorial Hospital.
Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes visited what was left of the home on Friday and spoke with neighbors who described the terrifying moments.
“It was just raining, there was no wind, just a steady rain, and I was standing in my kitchen, and I started hearing like ‘ping, ping, ping,’ and I was like, ‘What is that?’ And I pulled the sliding glass door back right here, and I see right over here a funnel touching the ground. I immediately ran in my closet, covered my head, and took cover, and just started praying, panicking, and I could hear things hitting the house. It was really loud," Courtney Bucio said.
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When the noises stopped, neighbors came outside and learned their neighbor Tray Chaney, an actor who played Malik “Poot” Carr on “The Wire,” and his 18-year-old son were in the home.
Neighbors say Malachi Chaney was upstairs playing video games when the tornado hit.
Fernandes took neighbors’ concerns for their safety to the homebuilder, Century Communities. They say their homes are well-constructed. A spokesperson said that any home would have looked like that if it was directly hit by a tornado.
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