According to Datarecovery.com, an F3 tornado is a "severe tornado" involving 158-206 mph winds. The site also stated tornadoes can range from F0 to F6.
The storm left a portion of Boone Ford Road for most of weekend after it ripped through the Sonoraville area and demolished at least one house in its path at the corner of Beason Road and Boone Ford Road. The four people inside the home at the time of tornado came out with only scratches.
Gordon County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Robert Paris said Sonoraville, Farmville, Plainview, Talking Rock and Gardner Springs communities all experienced damage. Paris said no fatalities or major injuries have been reported.
Mellows Bridge Road, Taylor Ridge Road and Shaw Road also had barns and roofs missing from homes.
North Georgia EMC said 3,000 were left without power Thursday and more than 300 people had no electricity Thursday morning.
"Crews were working through the night to restore power to as many customers as possible by way of an alternate feed from another substation circuit," said a report from North Georgia EMC. At least 7 poles are confirmed broken and lines are down in a number of locations."
Paris said strong winds knocked over a damaged pole on Beason Road Sunday night and left many people in the area without power again.
County officials at the Gordon County public safety joint command operations center declared a 10 p.m. curfew Thursday night, asking residents to stay at home until 7 a.m. this morning.
Public safety officials remained on scene midmorning Friday directing traffic at the intersection of Campbell and Boone Ford Roads while workers repaired damaged power lines in the area.
According to North Georgia EMC, about 3,000 customers in Gordon County were without power after the storms Thursday night.
Witness encounters
Local residents, Nina Dixson and her two daughters, 9 and 12, were traveling down Boone Ford Road when the storm hit.
"I was coming off of Owens Chapel Road and the rain started to pick up more and all of the sudden I couldn't see at all," Dixson said. "Everything was black."
She said a tree then fell in front of the black Chevy Tahoe she was driving.
"It fell, so I put it (the Tahoe) in reverse and backed up a little bit, but I could feel the Tahoe moving a little bit," she recalled.
"The girls were screaming and I said to them 'we're OK, we're OK.'"
Dixson said she wasn't sure of what she could do or couldn't do, so she continued to drive a little further down the road and stopped the vehicle once she discovered power lines were down around her.
"I didn't realize it was a tornado at the time," she said, "but it had to be."
Dixson said she was only a mile and half away from her home when the storm hit.
Witness Anne Kelley was at her home when the storm came through the Boone Ford Road area. Although she said her house was spared, her brother's, Regan Stone, home was not.
The right side of Stone's home suffered the most damaged with shingles and siding now missing from the home. His front porch also collapsed.
Kelley, who lives within walking distance from her brother's home, said the storm sounded like a loud whistling train and only lasted for a couple of minutes.
"Everything went black," she said.
Check back for further updates on storm cleanup.
"Facebook friends, my neighbors could use some prayer. We just went through a tornado a couple hours ago. I was on Facebook when the power went off. Looked out the window in time to see the tops of my trees sailing off and then all hell broke loose. I grabbed my cell phone, called Mom, and went hysterical. She said get to the crawlspace but when I tried to get out of the house the wind sucked the door shut and I ran screaming into the bathroom, debris just a smacking against the walls and then before I could even find cover it was over. I and all my kitty cats are alright but four houses on the next road in back of me are "flattened" and there are injuries. Everyone has been located, though it took a while, I'm told. That's all I know right now. Please pray for them. All the trees that fell in my yard fell away from the house, thank God. I found branches stabbed into the ground like missiles. It's dark now, and quiet, but for a while afterwards there were many sirens all around and I can tell you with all my heart I never want to be this close to a tornado again! Thank you, everyone, for your prayers. Living alone, far from family, is no fun at a time like this :("
After the wind and rain died down, I got out of the car and saw that there were trees as far as you could see down on Campbell road, in both directions. Another car up the road was trapped as well, and as far as I could tell, was undamaged. During the storm we saw a transformer ahead explode, and now you could see the pole that it was on leaning at about fifty degrees. On the road, other than the trees, were large pine branches, a couple of two-by-fours, a mailbox. A lot of pieces of metal roofing from the barn that got hit to the west was blown up in the trees. Fortunately the power lines did not come down on the road in that particular area.
Getting off Campbell road took a while. A fellow pulled up in a truck and started helping pull branches out of the way. He said he lived on Boone Ford and had tried three or four other ways to get to his home, but all roads leading there were block by trees - Big Springs, McCreary, Cash, Pendley. I finally did a bit of "ditch surfung" around the downed trees to get free.
Later, I was able to get through Gravely Road and saw that the power lines are down from just east of that road all the way up to Greystone, so if you are out of power, its going to be a while before repairs are made to the grid.