Sherman, however, passed by without entering Macon. The Macon Telegraph reported the city had furnished 23 companies of men for the Confederacy, but casualties were high. By war end, Maconite survivors fit for duty could only fill five companies. The city was taken by Union forces during Wilson's Raid on April 20, 1865. Because of its central location, Macon developed as a state transportation hub. In 1895, the New York Times dubbed Macon "The Central City” because of is emergence as a railroad transportation and textile factory hub. Terminal Station was built in 1916. In the twentieth century, Macon grew into a prospering town in Middle Georgia. Macon has been impacted by natural catastrophes. In 1994 Tropical Storm Alberto made landfall in Florida and flooded several Georgia cities. Macon, which received of rain, suffered major flooding in Georgia. On May 11, 2008, an EF2 tornado hit Macon. Touching down in nearby Lizella, the tornado moved northeast to the southern shore of Lake Tobesofkee, continued into Macon, and lifted near Dry Branch in Twiggs County. The storm’s total path length was , and its path width was . The tornado produced sporadic areas of major damage, with widespread straight-line wind damage along its southern track. The most significant damage was along Eisenhower Parkway and Pio Nono Avenue in Macon, where two businesses were destroyed and several others were heavily damaged. The tornado also impacted Middle Georgia State College, where almost half of the campus’s trees were snapped or uprooted and several buildings were damaged, with the gymnasium suffering the worst. The tornado’s intensity varied from EF0 to EF2, with the EF2 damage and winds up to occurring near the intersection of Eisenhower Parkway and Pio Nono Avenue. Consolidation On July 31, 2012, voters in Macon (57.8 percent approval) and Bibb County (56.7 percent approval) passed a referendum to merge the governments of the city of Macon and most of unincorporated Bibb County. The vote came after the Georgia General Assembly passed House Bill 1171, authorizing the referendum earlier in the year; Four previous consolidation attempts (in 1933, 1960, 1972, and 1976) failed. As a result of the referendum, (i) the Macon and Bibb County governments were replaced with a mayor and a nine-member county commission elected by districts and (ii) a portion of Macon extending into nearby Jones County was disincorporated. Robert Reichert was elected the first mayor of Macon-Bibb in