The power’s back on but there are still trees on top of houses in my East Atlanta neighborhood, three days after the storm that tore across the Southeast.With all the tornado watches and warnings, I went into my Friday night expecting to be called to a natural disaster somewhere in the region. My coworkers and I spent five days in February covering multiple tornadoes in rural parts of Tennessee.What I did not expect is that a twister would touch down in the heart of my own city — Downtown Atlanta!

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It’s not that I felt this place was invincible to disaster. The tornado damage at Centennial Olympic Park was eerily reminiscent of the 1996 Olympic bombing at that same location.

Perhaps I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the urban myth that city buildings discourage tornado activity. Never mind that over the past 15 years, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has confirmed tornadoes in the central business districts of Houston TX, Miami FL, Nashville TN, Little Rock AR, Salt Lake City UT, Ft. Worth TX and Jacksonville FL.

Such a thing had never happened in Downtown Atlanta — until Friday. We were not expecting it, much as I doubt the good people of Lafayette, TN expected the tornado that struck their community last month.

The lasting image I have from that February assignment is of a man kneeling and praying in front of his country church which had been destroyed. A month later, I found myself worrying about my own inner-city church (it was OK).

And after warning viewers in the path of a second wave of severe storms, I called my wife to make sure she was watching (she had already taken cover in our downstairs bathroom with our 4-year-old son and two dogs).

At our downtown reporting location, police were urging people to take cover. And hotel employees ushered people off the streets and into interior rooms.

Fortunately, the weather quickly passed without further incident, allowing relief agencies, construction workers and residents to return to their massive cleanup efforts.

Yes, the biggest city in the Southeast is not much different than the smallest towns when it comes to tornadoes — not just in terms of the danger, but the way ordinary people pull together during and after the storm.