An EF-4 tornado rocked the normally quiet city of Newnan during the overnight hours of March 28 and 29.

A mile-wide tornado carrying 170-mph winds damaged more than 1,700 homes, wreaked havoc on utilities and spread an estimated 800,000 cubic yards of debris all over the city. By some miracle, no one was killed directly by the tornado, although one resident did suffer a fatal heart attack during the storm.

For many, the damage to one of Georgia’s most picturesque historic towns, known as the “City of Homes,” is heartbreaking.

“The visual change is jarring,” said Hasco Craver, Newnan’s assistant city manager. “The loss of tree canopy and building damage is tough to get used to.”

Despite this, the Coweta County city is well on its way to physical and emotional recovery, thanks in large part to helping hands from cities across Georgia.

“As the sun rose that Friday morning, it was evident that the extent of the damage far surpassed our standard capabilities,” Craver said. “Fortunately, that’s when the phone started ringing.”

Newnan was immediately deluged with assistance from cities near and far coming to help with everything from traffic control, debris pickup and utility repair. One of those was the city of East Point, led by Electric Director Shawn Dowe. Leaving a skeleton crew to cover needs at home, the rest of the team headed to Newnan with bucket and pickup trucks and the know-how to get the area back on track. With teams from other cities, the East Point crew spent four days making critical repairs to more than 250 poles in varying states of disrepair, many snapped clean in half.

East Point worked closely with a team from the city of Marietta to form a well-oiled machine during this time. “We would change out the broken poles, then Marietta would come behind and frame the poles and string the wires,” Dowe said. “Within those couple of days we set more than 20-something poles back to working order. The electric crews banded together to help a city in need. It was a great sight to see.”

A flood of assistance from law enforcement partners also had a tremendous impact on the city’s impressive bounce-back.

“We knocked on every single door to check on citizens,” Craver said. “Without the help of our partners in public service, it would have taken exponentially more time. It could frankly have resulted in loss of life or greater loss of public or private property, had we not had those reinforcements.”

Although Newnan will long remember the terror of the tornado of 2021, they won’t soon forget the kindness of strangers they now call neighbors during their time of need. When the situation is reversed in the future, it’s a safe bet that Newnan crews will be the first on the road to help.

This story originally appeared in the May/June 2021 edition of Georgia’s Cities magazine.