The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP Atlanta

A possible tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta on Friday night, smashing skyscraper windows, sucking furniture and luggage out of hotel rooms, crumbling part of an apartment building and rattling the rafters of two major sports arenas filled with basketball fans. At least 20 people were hurt. Streets around the Georgia Dome, the Phillips Arena, the CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park were littered with broken glass, downed power lines, crumbled bricks, insulation and even the occasional office chair. Billboards collapsed onto parked cars. Stunned fans from the arenas and hotel guests wandered through the debris in disbelief. "It was crazy. There was a lot of windows breaking and stuff falling," said Terrence Evans, a valet who was about to park a car at the Omni Hotel when the apparent twister hit. At an early morning news conference, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin called the storm "what we now know was a tornado." But National Weather Service officials continued to say only that a "possible tornado" hit around 9:40 p.m., accompanied by a storm packing 60 mph winds. A tornado warning had been issued for downtown a few minutes before. There was no announcement of the approaching storm for the 18,000 fans inside the Georgia Dome for the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament. The first sign something was wrong was a rumbling from above and the rippling of the Fiberglas fabric roof.