Some of the houses in the Pineworth area east of Lake Tobesofkee already have toppled, while others seem to be waiting to fall.
Linda Mosley stood in the doorway of her screened porch on Minuett Court, peering up at the tree that had slammed into the roof.
Matthew Morgan, a Marietta tree removal specialist who said the roof will probably need to be replaced, warned her not to stand there.
But she'd been going in and out of the porch all day.
"I'm not too worried," she said.
Other neighbors also are staying in houses with no roofs and buckling walls, trying to protect their belongings and remove trees from their homes. Mosley estimates about 80 families live in her hard-hit Pineworth by the Lake neighborhood.
"There are no more pines now," she said. "We'll have to rename it. ... But no one in this neighborhood was hurt or killed. It's a miracle."
Every second house has a tree through its roof or a tarp covering gaping holes. Every 10 feet is a neat stack of limbs, logs and shingles by the road. Many yards are a chest-deep sea of toppled trees, and Mosley's is no exception.
She and her husband had just arrived in Florida for their 40th wedding anniversary - their first vacation in 15 years - when the storm hit and sent them into a tailspin. When they arrived back home, the devastation was unlike anything Mosley had seen in her 30 years in the house.
Wednesday, chain saws buzzed throughout the neighborhood and insurance adjustors surveyed many of the houses.
"We did a lot of recovering work for (Hurricanes) Rita and Katrina," said Morgan, whose Limb-it-Less business is working for various insurance companies. He looked up and down the road at Pineworth. "But this is pretty bad, because people were so close together and the trees were so big."
Across the street from the Mosleys is a house locals call "the governor's mansion." It was once owned by Georgia Gov. Charles McDonald, a secessionist who won office in 1839. The underpinnings of its roof are exposed and a rental house out back was demolished, but the structure fared better than many of its neighbors.
At the entrance to the subdivision, a bed stood exposed to the sky in a bedroom shorn of walls and roof. Bricks had crumbled to the ground, and insulation was caught in tufts of the pine trees blanketing the grass.
Ricky Hulett said his house at the edge of the lake was hit directly by a tornado crossing from Claystone Park. The living room area appeared blown in, and the walls and floors are buckling. He said he thinks the roof was lifted up and set down again. All five vehicles in the driveway were totaled.
At the home of Gayle and Skip Johnson on Stapleton Road, "Moses parted the sea and an oak tree parted the house," Skip said with a lopsided grin.
The Johnsons were scrambling into their clothes Sunday morning when Skip heard a saw-buzzing sound "just like the sound tornadoes make in cartoons," he said. He rushed Gayle into the hall just as a 4-foot-wide oak tree fell into the living room, slicing the house in two. A few moments later, two more trees fell into their bedroom at the other end of the hall.
"When the storm passed, Gayle said, 'The roof! The roof!' and we realized we were covered in insulation," Skip Johnson said.
The couple already has rented an apartment. But Skip is staying in the house, which is missing about a third of its roof, until they can remove their valuables.
They called the whole experience humbling.
"It's amazing what you thought was important, isn't," Skip Johnson said. "It's just a house."
To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225.
