A family’s life was spared Monday afternoon when a tornado apparently passed directly over their northwest Fayette home.

Wayne Benton saw the swirling funnel heading his way, ripping up debris across a nearby pasture. He ran inside and huddled with son Jim and daughter Amy in the hallway, with nothing but a mattress to protect them.

Miraculously, the tornado passed over their home just after snapping a number of large pine trees next door. Many of those trees fell against Benton’s home, creating a sort of makeshift ramp.

On the other side of the home, the tornado sawed through another stand of trees. Yet his home, and his family’s lives, were spared.

“The trees saved my house,” Benton said as he surveyed the damage in daylight Tuesday morning at the intersection of Bohannon and Mann roads.

The trees that saved Benton’s house did provide some collateral damage, however, as they fell on two trucks that were parked there, including one Amy Benton was planning to drive to her first day of school at LaGrange College Tuesday morning.

Another truck was lifted off the ground and moved several feet due to the tornado’s force, Benton said.

“It happened so quick,” Benton recalled. “I was scared for my kids.”

After the twister was long gone, Benton had his backhoe out, helping to clear the road for motorists. A friend has offered the use of a car so Amy can get back and forth to school.

A tornado is also being blamed for obliterating a trailer and severely damaging a house on Ga. Highway 74 north near the Fayette-Fulton county line. Karen Campbell said she was in the house trying to take a nap when her 6-year-old daughter Tabatha and her grandfather came running in, having seen the tornado.

They took shelter in the laundry room, and they prayed, Campbell said.

In addition to destroying her daughter’s trailer, the tornado also damaged windows and ripped off parts of the roof to Campbell’s home. Toys were strewn everywhere on the ground because the family collected them to send to Mexico for needy children.

“Praise the Lord, it could have been a lot worse,” Campbell said.

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