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At the Piedmont Cheerwine Bottling Co. on Sandy Ridge Road, they didn't need Jerry Gearheart to work on the trucks. Instead, they needed Gearheart, a mechanic, to figure out how to get their sign righted. Thursday night's winds had toppled the sign, a 10-foot-high metal barrel that looks like an oversized Cheerwine can.

Gearheart figures a tow truck will do the job. He plans on bringing his back later today.

"It didn't weigh much," Gearheart said of the sign. "It's a wonder it (the wind) didn't take it plum across the road."

* * *

Zion Hill United Methodist Church on Sandy Ridge Road sustained a little damage to its roof, steeple and picnic shelter. Limbs from a pine tree lay in the yard beside the sanctuary, and two of the five stained glass windows on the church's south wall had holes in them.

All things considered, Pastor Timothy Fitzgerald said, the damage to the 55-year-old building could have been a lot worse.

"You can always repair a building, but you can't repair lives," Fitzgerald said. "We're thankful for that."

Fitzgerald said the church, established on that site in 1885, will have its regular Sunday services. "The church is going to be OK," he said.

* * *

The Piedmont Triad Farmers Market got clobbered.

The wind knocked down the tall trees that lined the southern edge of the property and blew down a wall of Building D. The wind scattered plants and produce and tossed freezers like they were toys.

James Hunter and Kathy Johnson, who sell strawberries and asparagas for Gary Thomas Farms in Sanford, didn't realize that the storm had been so severe until they got close to the farmers market this morning and saw downed trees and police cars. The wind mangled the tent that covered their stall in Building E, which motorists can see from Interstate 40, and damaged a table.

But unlike some other vendors, they didn't lose any produce because they packed theirs up Thursday afternoon and hauled it back to Sanford. With no power to the market, Hunter and Johnson won't be able to sell the 200 gallons of strawberries they brought today.

They marveled at the randomness of the wind.

"Look, James!" Johnson said. "It didn't even move the onions." A display of sweet onions and red potatoes remained on a shelf where they had been left Thursday afternoon. A 6-foot-high freezer, meanwhile, had been shoved 10 feet.

* * *

Gloria Varas rode out Hurricane Andrew in 1992 in North Miami, Fla. Thursday night's storm wasn't nearly as bad, but it still packed a punch.

The wind peeled off the roof of her neighbor's shed and dropped it in two pieces in the back yard of her Rose Haven Road home. A third piece wound up on the driveway closer to the road. Pieces of leaves remained stuck to the garage door. A tire from her grandson's bicycle peeked up from underneath the blown-off roof. Her home -- she and her husband moved in there in November -- was not damaged.

Varas pointed to the undamaged wood shed in her back yard.

"Look at this piece of junk," she said. "It stood up."

Next door, where Varas' son and daughter-in-law live, the wind smashed a metal shed and blew their trampoline across the road. A metal spring from the trampoline smashed the rear window of Angela Penny's GMC Yukon.

While Varas slept through the storm, her son, Brad Penny, herded his wife and three sons into the hallway at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.

"I saw green lights and the trees blowing," he said.

* * *

It must have been casual Friday at the warehouses and factories north of Interstate 40, judging by the men milling around the Greensboro Police Department's mobile command unit parked at the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market. Men in khakis and golf shirts talked into cell phones, trying to hear if they would be able to get to their jobs today.

"Do you have power?" asked one.

"I'll let you know as soon as I know," said another.

Police had cordoned off the area bordered by Interstate 40, Sandy Ridge Road, West Market Street and N.C. 68 and told the people who worked in that area to meet at the farmers market. There, they put their names and numbers on a list, and police promised to call when they could return to their offices.

Workers surrounded City Manager Mitch Johnson, who clutched a paper map with notes he had scribbled from a tour of the damaged area.

One man who worked at Purolater Facet wanted to know about the building.

"Your access into your parking lot ... " Johnson shook his head no. "It's a forest."

Someone else asked about his work place.

"All I can tell you is that it looks OK," Johnson said. "There's power lines down. It's like something walked down the power lines" along West Market Street.

Johnson described the extent of the damage inside the cordoned-off area.

Along Triad Drive, "it's like a bushwacker went through there and took the trees out." At the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated on Capital Drive, cars were upside down on their roofs. "It's like they came out of the sky and landed on the parking lot," Johnson said.

* * *

Dorette and Dennis Dougherty Jr., the mother and son who own Zee Medical Service Co., got to the farmers market at 6 a.m. today to find out what they could about their business on Landmark Drive. Then they called employees and told them not to come to work today.

The Zee Medical building is next to Camco Manufacturing. "Their roof is still on," Dorette Dougherty said. "We hope ours is, too."

Both wanted to see their building, but they appreciated the fact that police weren't letting anyone back into the damaged area and were keeping them up to date on developments. Better to be inconvenienced for a while, Dennis Dougherty said, than have to defend the place.

"We don't like waiting this long," Dorette Dougherty said at about 9 a.m.

"But we understand," Dennis Dougherty added.

* * *

Bob Young was asleep in the camper of his tractor trailer, parked at a Citgo truck stop on the Sandy Ridge Road exit when the tornado hit. Young was heading back to Canonsburg, Pa., a day early after making deliveries in Raleigh and Fayetteville. He said the lightning and high winds woke him up.

"All of a sudden something didn't sound right and I got up and the canopy was knocked over," he said.

High winds bent a metal canopy over onto itself. The canopy was covering at least eight diesel fuel pumps and crushed most of a wooden service island. The canopy and fuel pumps were only about 18 yards from Young's tractor trailer.

Young wasn't alone in the lot. There were seven other tractor trailers idling with drivers inside.

* * *

Jeremy Manuel's three-month-old truck sat under a tree at 8504 Farrington Road, where church members David Vaughn and Gene Blankenship were helping to remove the tree.

"The roar was so loud we didn't hear the trees fall," said his mother, Susie Manuel.

* * *

Ruth Holt's home at 3210 Sandy Ridge Road was hit by a tree. Though she was not home, her son Garland Holt rode out the storm in his trailer behind the house.

"The trailer got to rocking," Holt said. "I'll never forget that sound as long as I live."