Homeowners left to pick up pieces after storms

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — Thunderstorms across the Midlands brought tree limbs down, causing power outages for thousands, and big headaches for homeowners Wednesday. Green Briar resident Trey Jones was at work when he learned his house alarm was going-off. He immediately thought of the ongoing storms, and headed home right away. “I pulled in the driveway and saw the tree coming over the top of the roof,” he says. “We could see from our porch where the tree had brushed against the other tree and taken out some branches,” his next-door neighbor noted. It was not until Jones got inside his house, after making sure his two dogs were okay, that he realized what had really happened. “What used to be a ceiling, an attic, was now open to the sky,” he says. And from the sky, water, poured into the house, soaking two bedrooms on the second floor, and dripping down into the master bedroom on the main level. His wife, thankfully, was not in the house. “She’s nine months pregnant and I think if she was here, we’d have a new baby boy tonight,” Jones says. Clean-up crews arrived within 30 minutes. Jones says everything is covered by their homeowner’s insurance.