Tornado Hits Historic Atlanta
By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Mar. 19, 2008
Last Friday, a tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta, downing trees and damaging dozens of historic structures, including monuments in the city's oldest park, Oakland Cemetery. Governor Sonny Perdue has declared a state of emergency in the affected areas.
"There's extensive damage that's really quite devastating to the cemetery," says Christine Neal, cemetery specialist and archaeology program coordinator at the state's Historic Preservation Division, which is compiling a list of injured properties. "There's physical damage, but there's also heartfelt devastation because of the history embodied there and the responsibility that we feel for the monuments put up for people who were very much loved by their families. There is a lot that can be repaired, luckily."
Falling trees crushed more than 20 houses in the Cabbagetown neighborhood, a National Register-listed historic district near the cemetery. High winds blew off the roof of the 1881 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, rehabbed as loft-style apartments in the late 1990s, and several upper floors later collapsed. No residents were hurt during the Mar. 14 tornado.
"[The mill] was hard hit," says Ced Dolder, tax incentives coordinator with the state. "These developers came in and made an award-winning conversion, one that was held up to a lot of textile towns in the south as something that could be done. It was pretty tragic."
Officials estimate that the 48-acre Oakland Cemetery, which contains 70,000 graves, sustained $3 million to $4 million in damages.
"There's a lot of work ahead," Neal says, noting that the state will advise the city of Atlanta and a cemetery nonprofit regarding repairs. "Cemeteries are usually not insured like buildings and cars, so finding the money to repair things is excruciatingly difficult. Oakland Cemetery is an important resource, though, so they'll step up."
Read more about the damage to Atlanta's historic properties at http://hpd.dnr.state.ga.us/content/displaycontent.asp?txtDocument=417
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