The National Weather Service confirms it was downburst winds equivalent to an EF-1 tornado that damaged or destroyed dozens of houses in a Lilburn subdivision Friday.

Of the 38 homes that were affected in the Cedar Creek and Killian Hill Manor subdivisions on Killian Hill Road, two were destroyed and 12 sustained major damage. Several cars were also damaged.

Betty Childres is thankful she had seven trees taken out of her front yard last summer. She watched from her front window as three pines snapped in her neighbor’s back yard.

“I was so frightened that I really started to cry,” she tells WSB’s Sandra Parrish. “It just scared me so bad.”

Her elderly neighbor Deana Tolbert has lived in her home for 43 years and was there by herself when the storm hit.

“It was something I have never experienced before. The wind was laying everything over to one side,” she says. “I have lost a whole yard full of trees. My house didn’t suffer a whole lot other than the garage.”

Tree companies were working alongside power crews all up and down Cedar Woods Drive Monday. Some neighbors are staying in hotels because their houses are so badly damaged.

The NWS says winds in the Friday storm were as high as 90 miles per hour with damage over 12 square miles in Lilburn and parts of Snellville.