After close call in storm, daughter and dad count their blessings

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Among the who had close calls during Friday’s storm were Michelle Burney and her father William.

William Burney pulled up right as the storm hit.

“I said, ‘Come on, Daddy! Come on, Daddy!’ That tree would have hit him if I hadn’t have rushed him on,” she said. “Yeah, the tree would have hit him.”

She got him inside— and kept him there even though he left his car running.

“She wouldn’t let me out the house,” he said. “‘No you ain’t going nowhere!’ She trapped me in the house, she wouldn’t let me out. ‘You ain’t going nowhere! You hear that storm out there?’” he recalled with a laugh.

After the storm passed, he worked his way over the railing and found a branch clinging onto his car window.

With not much to do but wait for crews, he got to work

“I’m jacking this car up,” he said.

Things took some finagling and working.

But in the end, he had one victory for the day.

Then they had to wait for crews to help clear everything from an event that only lasted minutes.

“It scared me,” William Burney said. “It happened so fast, it happened so fast.”

They rejoiced that they got inside within seconds.

“It could have really hurt,” Michelle Burney said, “but luckily, everybody got out OK.”

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