News 12 First at Five; July 6, 2009

AUGUSTA AND AIKEN --- Lots of people cleaning up today after wicked storms headed through our area late Sunday and overnight. We take you on a tour of the damage.

Lost in the sea of green leaves is youngster Coty Sims. "I thought it didn't look very cool," says Coty of the damage on Beman Street near downtown and Walton Way.

He's on summer break, but today he's on a mission to help untangle the mess in an Augusta backyard. "I just want to help people," says Coty. "I've been taking limbs and putting them into a pile."

Limb by limb, Coty -- is making one big impression. "So they won't have to do a lot of work by themselves."

Just a block away, Leeneau Cason couldn't see the damage at night. "I heard the big boom noise," she says. Then, when day light broke, she saw trees and debris everywhere.

"I don't really know where to begin," adds Cason.

But she does know what it is going to take to get her yard back up to speed, like it was just hours before the damage came through. "A couple of days and a good chainsaw," she says. "A little overwhelming but I've been through worse."

Across the river in South Carolina, Terry Carvoo describes what he heard hours after the storms went through Gloverville. "This morning, we heard crash bang boom and it sounded like fireworks were going off."

But, it ended up being a huge tree crashing down across Pine Street, right next to his home. Luckily, his home was not damaged.

We also talked with SC DOT worker Patrick Smith, who was out in Aiken County today cleaning up the trees that were down, including the one on Terry's street. "Most of the time you see trees down, debris all over the roadway," Patrick says.

He says, once he heard the storms he knew what to do. "Leave my cell phone on. You never know when they're going to call you."

That call did come on Monday to come out and clean up the mess. He says, it is bad out here in Aiken County, but luckily not as bad as the Good Friday storms from April.