Hurricane Irma: DeKalb Neighbors Free Woman In Labor Trapped By Storm

AVONDALE ESTATES, GA -- Individual stories of how metro Atlantans showed grit and determination while coping with Hurricane Irma are starting to emerge days after the menacing storm has left the area. The plight of a DeKalb County woman who went into labor while trapped in her home is one powerful example.

Heather Yavaliollah was at home with her husband, Mehrvarz ,when a tree fell on their residence in Avondale Estates, according to news reports. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

With the tree blocking the couple inside their home, the Yavaliollahs figured that they could wait out the storm and begin cleaning things up. But on Tuesday, a month before her due date, Heather's water broke, according to WAGA-TV.

By that time, trees were snapping and outages were spreading like wildfire across DeKalb. The county's CEO, huddled with his administrators, called a state of emergency. DeKalb County was going dark.

“Everything looked fine and we were not expecting anything to happen and then Irma came along and changed all of that,” Heather Yavaliollah told the TV station.

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Her husband leaped into action, hurrying outside to get a chainsaw. But then something amazing happened: Word spread that the Yavaliollahs were in labor and people who also live on the street began to assist.

“My wonderful neighbors saw me outside, they kind of knew the situation so they started grabbing limbs as I was cutting them off and helped move them to the street, so very thankful to them,” Mehrvarz Yavaliollah told the TV station.

Soon the Yavaliollahs were able to make it to Piedmont Hospital, where Solomon and Stuart, two healthy baby boys, were brought into the world.

Gov. Nathan Deal said Thursday that "virtually" all of Georgia's 159 counties were affeced by Irma, which still has home in metro Atlanta without power. Crews hope to have electricity on for everyone by this weekend.

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