The minor knee surgery I underwent last Wednesday may have been routine, but the rest of the day was anything but. I was my surgeon’s last operation that afternoon, and though scheduled for 3 p.m., I wasn’t rolled back to the operating room until about 5:30.

Being a weather junkie, I knew that forecasters were privately very fearful that Wednesday’s predicted tornado outbreak might turn out to be one for the record books and I had posted a warning Tuesday morning on a weather website I own, advising north Georgia residents to make preparations. The dangerous storms ravaging Alabama were expected to hit Bartow by early evening, so I was anxious to make it back home from the hospital before they arrived.

We pulled in around 7:30, ate dinner and then lost power as the first storm cells moved through. Though I was supposed to keep my leg elevated and iced down, we made three trips to the basement that evening. With my knee hurting and no ice for the swelling I almost didn’t make that last trip downstairs, but it was that third storm that spawned the tornado that wiped out so much of my corner of Bartow County.

Without power, we had no television or Internet to keep us updated, so we responded to the county storm siren located near our home. It was during that last trip to the basement that my brother called to warn me that a large tornado was on the ground and headed straight for us.

While he and I were talking everything outside suddenly turned completely peaceful. There was no rain, no hail, no wind and no sound…just complete silence. I learned later it was at that exact moment that my neighbors’ lives were being changed forever as home after home located along the roads around us were being ripped apart.

At that point I still had no idea of the severity of the destruction occurring in our country neighborhood until my phone rang again a few minutes later with news that the home of a friend and former employee of mine, who lived around the corner from us, had been leveled and his mother was injured. He had called 911 only to be told that it would be a long time before anyone could get to them due to the massive level of damage around the county.

My little slice of heaven is covered with mature trees and I was upset that having just had surgery, I would be helpless to clean up our place for at least a couple of weeks. With some hesitation I hobbled out on my porch with a powerful flashlight and scanned our property expecting to see a mess. Amazingly everything was intact. Not so much as an old dead branch had fallen from any of our trees.

That brief moment seemed to last a while as I thanked God that our home and lives had been spared. The reality of not always being in control began to sink in as I looked at my freshly operated on left knee. I’m a “Type A” personality, and that means I tend to be an impatient, proactive get-out-there-and-get-it-done-now kind of guy. Though we had personally dodged the tornado’s wrath, I was chomping at the bit to grab my chainsaw and see if I could assist some of my friends dig out. Being unable to help, needless to say I had a restless night.

Though friends and family members relayed information by phone to us about the destruction in Bartow County, it was not until our power was restored late Thursday morning and we saw the images on television and online that it sank in. That afternoon my wife drove me around our country neighborhood, and though we stayed away from the worst areas so as to not get in the way, what we did see shook us both to the core.

Just a few hundred yards up from our place was a house with several large trees lying on it, and not far past them an incredible level of devastation unfolded. Homes we had driven by hundreds of times were gone or damaged beyond recognition. The previously gorgeous countryside now consisted of thousands of trees that were knocked over, snapped off, twisted or mangled. Pasture fences were decorated with sheet metal, insulation, shingles and siding blown from nearby homes and barns.

Those trips to the basement Wednesday night along with not being able to ice down my knee during the 16 hours following surgery has slowed my recovery and I’m still just barely hobbling around. However every time that restless, impatient, poor-me feeling starts coming on, I remember how fortunate we were to have been spared Wednesday night and I think about the losses our neighbors have suffered. It’s very humbling.

After the Blizzard of ’93 I spent several weeks cutting up and clearing away dozens of large mature pines on our property that had snapped under the weight of the snow. I repeated that when Hurricane Opal roared through Georgia in 1995, and again a couple of years later when a super cell thunderstorm collapsed sending hurricane-force, straight-line winds down our road. However each time I had a nice dry home to return to.

Tonight and every night for the next several weeks or months, a large number of Bartow families will be spending those nights with friends, with family, in a hotel or a rental house while they wait for their own homes to be repaired or rebuilt. While it will be very stressful for them, Bartow Countians are resilient people and with the help of others these families will recover and be able to resume their normal lives.

Right now there’s a huge outpouring from the community of financial and material support for the storm victims along with donations of time to help clean up the mess. However, in the days ahead as we fall back into our daily routines, let’s not forget our neighbors, as they will still face enormous challenges.

I, for one, can’t wait for this knee to heal up. I may not have been able to help cut up any trees last week, but hopefully I’ll be able to help a neighboring family move back into their home soon. That will be a happy day.

Follow me on Twitter @chuckshiflett and also check out my statewide columns at The Backroom Report.