Florida residents over 100 miles from Milton’s landfall faced a different threat: 3 tornadoes in less than 25 minutes

CNN

By Alisha Ebrahimji, Paul P. Murphy and Mary Gilbert, CNN

St. Lucie County, Florida (CNN) — As Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, as a dangerous Category 3 storm — weakening to a Category 1 as it sliced through the state — at least nine tornadoes tore through communities over 100 miles inland, including three in less than 25 minutes, according to a CNN analysis of National Weather Service warnings.

Milton, the third hurricane to hit Florida this year, dumped about 16 inches of rain on St. Petersburg, a more than a 1-in-1000 year rainfall event for the area, according to the National Hurricane Center.

But residents in St. Lucie County faced an entirely different threat: fatal tornadoes that were “supercharged” compared to typical hurricane-spawned tornadoes, National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan told CNN Thursday. The tornadoes killed five people, according to county officials.

Video from the moment one of the tornadoes fiercely and quickly ravaged through the area shows intense winds hurling large chunks of debris through the air in several directions as the sky turns from a light gray color to an intense fog within 50 seconds.

Officials say some of the hardest hit areas include Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a retirement community, Portofino Shores, Holiday Pines, Lakewood Park, South Florida Logistics Center 95 and Sunnier Palms Park and Campground.

“Their whole homes with them inside were lifted up, moved, destroyed,” St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson said. “I mean everything in the hurricane or this tornado’s path is gone,” including the 10,000 square-foot, red iron sheriff’s facility.

Statewide, there have been 38 tornado reports, with over 125 issued tornado warnings by the National Weather Service, the agency said early Thursday morning – the most tornado warnings ever in a single day for the state of Florida, crushing the previous record of 69 set in 2017, during Hurricane Irma.

“There’s no way we could have predicted this type of activity because this is just not precedented,” Port St. Lucie Mayor Shannon Martin told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Thursday morning. “I know I’ve never seen anything like that before in almost 20 years that I’ve been here.”

Now, parts of St. Lucie, which has recently been on the US Census list of fastest growing cities, are looking at significant structural damage including downed power lines, as dangerous winds uprooted trees, overturned cars and reduced homes to piles of rubble. As of 6:35 a.m. Thursday, more than 64,000 customers don’t have power in the county, and rescue and recovery efforts continue.

Julene Martin-Morganelli, board of directors president at Sunnier Palms Park and Campgrounds, was in her house when a tornado hit the area, she told CNN Thursday.

Many from the community were sheltering in the clubhouse’s men’s restroom when Martin-Morganelli ran to her home to collect a case of water, her dog, dog food and some medications for others. But as she gathered everything together, a gush of wind through her open sliding door gave her pause.

“The house started vibrating, and I hunkered down,” she said.

A few elderly residents who were stuck in the storm’s aftermath were rescued, Martin-Morganelli said, noting that it doesn’t appear anyone lost their life or suffered any serious injuries.

‘We knew it was going to eat up everything it came across’

Worried about her mostly elderly Spanish Lakes customers, Laura Gabriel, manager of Prestige Storage in St. Lucie, told CNN she wants to make sure she’s around so her customers can access their storage units, where many are keeping supplies they need.

“I love my people here, and it just hurts my heart that their whole community got devastated,” she said fighting tears. “It’s scary, it’s very, very scary.”

Now that the storm has passed through, Gabriel is focused on checking on everybody in surrounding areas, she said.

“We knew that it (Milton) was going to eat up everything it came across,” she said. “And we were just praying.”

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