First came the heavy rain, and then Lorna Nissen heard the "howling" noise just after 10 a.m. Thursday.

She had no idea a tornado warning was in affect for Peachtree City, but she was positive that one hit her area in the Planterra Ridge subdivision, snapping trees and sending one through the roof of her next-door neighbor's house.

"I looked out the window and saw trees bending in half and said, 'Oh no,'" Nissen said. "It was torrential rain and a lot of wind."

"It sounded like being in a high-speed wind tunnel," said Nissen's daughter Nicole.

Nissen said her area in the 100 block of Terrane Ridge is in the southern part of Planterra Ridge and has experienced high winds before.

"This was just different," she said. "I told the girls, this is not a squall. ... The trees just snapped off like toothpicks. It seems like every time we get the bad weather."

The winds almost ripped some of Nissen's plants out of her garden, and it sent debris flying throughout the subdivision, with some metal lawn furniture landing in her bushes.

"I have some black gutter in my back yard and I don't know who it belongs to," Nissen said.

Nissen said her family didn't have a weather radio, which might have sounded a warning of the storm.

"But I'm going to get one," Nissen said.