National Weather Service Confirms at Least Four Twisters Hit Chattanooga Area Friday

We're now learning more about Friday's storms.

The National Weather Service spent much of the day surveying the damage in our area.

Meteorologist Tim Troutman confirms twisters did touch down in Summerville Georgia, Dunlap Tennessee and Sale Creek in Hamilton County.

Bryan Teems, "It was scary!"

It's no surprise to Bryan Teems that it was a tornado that he survived Friday in Sale Creek Friday.

Bryan Teems, Sale Creek Resident, "It was loud!""That's about as good a description as you can get. It sounded like a train coming through."

It snapped some trees like twigs and uprooted others right across from his house on Mayflower road.

Teems, "I come to the back door. I could actually hear it toward the front of the house but you could see stuff swirling everywhere."

The National Weather Service measured it an E-F One tornado.

Tim Troutman, "It had a maximum width of about 30 yards at its peak, wind speed at about 90 mph. There was at least about a half a mile path length of the tornado."

Meteorologist Tim Troutman says eye witness accounts and the path of the damage confirms a counter clockwise motion, a rotation in the winds that happens with a tornado.

Troutman, "You have trees laying right here at about 3 o clock, then further back in the field there's another tree laying at about 11 o clock."

Chief Bill Tittle with Hamilton County Emergency Management tells us Sale Creek got good notice from the National Weather Service of the approaching winds.

A Sale Creek resident himself, he and his family took cover in the basement.

Chief Bill Tittle, Hamilton County Emergency Management, "We in essence dodged the bullet at our house but a lot of folks in the county did not. There's damage all around the county."

For Teems it *is* a surprise there's hardly any damage at his house.

The tornado left behind only a dent in his truck and a crack in its windshield.

Teems, "It was a pretty ferocious storm."

The pair of twisters that hit Summerville and Dunlap measured EF2.The biggest of Friday's tornadoes ran through a couple counties in northeast Alabama.

It started in northern Marshall county.. Crossed the Tennessee River and hit southeastern Jackson county near Langston.

The twister apparently jumped Sand Mountain and hit Section Alabama.

And the last strike came near the town of Powell.

The powerful EF3 storm damaged dozens of homes and caused several minor injuries.

Click here to see the full Enhanced Fujita or EF Scale for measuring tornado damage.