Storms Hit the South

Mother Nature has struck again. In what is becoming an all too familiar occurrence, sudden, violent storms including tornados struck Alabama, Georgia and Missouri yesterday causing havoc.

At Watson Glass Co. in Enterprise, Kelly Watson said that the tornado has had a tremendous impact on the full-service company and she praised her crew for staying on the job until 7:30 last night to help board up local businesses. "We had to wait until the police and National Guard had assessed the situation before they would let us into the area to do the board up work for the local businesses," she said. "We've had such a lot of calls from businesses needing help."

On the auto glass side, she said that the company's bays are all filled with vehicles and there's a line outside. "We're all booked up for tomorrow already," she stated.

Watson, the wife of Stacy Watson who runs the 40-year old third-generation family owned company with his brother Clint, said the company had called the police and the local media to let them know that they had a warehouse where vehicles with broken glass that needed to be stored out of the weather could go.

"This work is going to go on for a long time," she added.

Edward R. Mock, owner of Battens Paint & Body, which also provides wrecking services in Enterprise, Ala., the town worst hit by the storm, called the situation there "critical" and "a national disaster."

When reached on the phone by glassBYTEs.com™ and USGNN this morning, he said he could only speak for a minute because he had to rush out to get a car moved that had been in an accident.

"I've been here forever and we've been in business for 30 years and I've never seen anything like this," he said. "Right now we're just helping to move cars and try to get to the bodies in the school where the roof collapsed during the tornado."

Mock said he already had 30 cars that he had to do estimates for and that it would be Monday or Tuesday before he could even get to that.

Mark Michael, owner of Southern Wholesale Glass, told us more about the tornado that also hit Americus, Ga., last night when we contacted him this morning.

"The local glass company, Americus Glass which does commercial and residential flat glass, got hit and they lost power and their phones, but they're out starting to clean up," he said. "There was also damage in Columbus, Ga.," he added.

However, Michael said that he had not yet heard from any of his clients in Alabama.

"We're running wild just trying to keep up," he said.