CONYERS, Ga. — Volunteers met in a parking lot in Conyers Thursday and started packing Chick-Fil-A meals into the trunks of their cars before heading out to some of the hardest hit areas in Rockdale County.
Earlier this week, an EF-2 tornado ripped through the community, leaving destruction in its path.
“We’re with Rockdale County relief effort for this storm,” said one volunteer, before asking someone with damage to their home how many meals they needed.
Gwendolyn Victor was inside her home when the storm hit. On Thursday, she called the free meal a blessing, one of many she said she experienced after the storm.
“Yes. Yes,” she said, as she started crying. “My neighbors are blessed. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got killed. Yes, we got a lot of damage to a lot of property, but, hey, y'all, hold your head up and look up to God and thank him, and everything is going to be alright.”
Victor was inside her home when the storm hit.
“I hid in the closet, and I started shaking,” she remembered. “I said, ‘Lord, let me be safe and blessed.”
She said seeing the help from the community gives her hope.
“Yes, because you just don't know how scared I was. And I didn't realize that I was until this morning. But I was scared, I was scared, I’m not going to lie. I just knew it was going to take my house and take me with it, I really did.”
Terrance Harvell lives down the road from Victor.
“He can’t still be in here,” said a volunteer as they approached his home, covered in branches with a tree crashed into the roof.
However, Harvell was sitting inside his garage when volunteers walked up.
“The sound was like,” Harvell paused, taking a deep breath. “It sounded like someone was screaming, it was so bad.”
Harvell said he was asleep when the storm hit. He said a branch crashed through his bedroom upstairs, and when he walked downstairs, Harvell said it was "madness."
He agreed with Victor, calling the surprise delivery of Chick-Fil-A "a blessing."