Tornado classified as F1
Heavy damage from Saturday night’s storm displaces some area residents
An F1 tornado that struck Orlando on Saturday night toppled trees, smashed cars and ripped off roofs in neighborhoods southeast of downtown, authorities said Sunday.
The National Weather Service determined that the twister, with winds of 100 to 105 mph, started as a water spout on Lake Conway at 7:20 p.m. and lifted back to the sky at 7:32 p.m. near Lake Lawsona. There were no reports of injuries.
The majority of the damage was caused by trees that fell onto homes, according to a tweet from meteorologist Scott Spratt in the Melbourne office.
The Lake Margaret Village apartment complex took the brunt of the tornado, with several buildings damaged.
Terri Young, 56, had just moved in January to the single-story
complex on South Ferncreek Avenue at Lake Margaret Drive.
On Sunday morning, Young used aluminum foil to cover windows smashed during the storm. Her truck is damaged, but her two cats, Elvis Presley and Amber Lynn, plus her cocker spaniel, Lucky, are safe, she said.
“It happened too fast,” Young said. “The next thing you know you hear the big pop, and the power went out. All of a sudden, it was so loud. I ran down the hall and the cats came running . ... It was frightening, and then it was over. The cats are fine, but they’re terrified.”
Heavy damage also occurred along Catherine Street west of Mills Avenue several blocks south of State Road 408.
A large oak toppled onto powerlines, snapping poles and wires. At least a halfdozen Orlando Utilities Commission trucks were brought in to make repairs.
The two-story Lake Davis Apartments complex on the north side of Catherine Street also was struck.
Resident Dr. George Cooper said the building shook when it was hit by a falling oak tree that gouged a large hole in a secondstory exterior wall of the complex.
Cooper said first responders and the Red Cross evacuated three apartments closest to the damaged building.
Cooper said he was monitoring weather reports and received a tornado warning.
“I thought, ‘It will miss us,’ ” he said. “It sure didn’t.”
Back at Lake Margaret Village, Seejay Coffindaffer, 24, and her fiancé Tyler Gootee, 27, ran into the bathroom after they heard the transformers blow.
“It was 20 seconds of the loudest — the only way I can describe it is — pressure,” Coffindaffer said.
The couple said they heard their neighbor, an amputee in a wheelchair, screaming for help so Tyler ran next door and tried to get inside but couldn’t. Authorities quickly showed up, they said, kicked in the door and took the man to a hospital.
“It was horrible,” Coffindaffer said. “It was so scary, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to go through a thunderstorm the same way again.”
Jhon Pico came to complex to check on his brother Jose, who lives there, and discovered that the roof of his apartment had been torn off by the storm.
“Thank Jesus my brother is OK! The stuff is just material stuff, I don’t care about that,” Jhon Pico said Orange County Fire department spokeswoman Carrie Proudfit said eight buildings were damaged, and 30 to 50 residents were potentially displaced by the storm. The Red Cross came to assist anyone who might end up homeless, she said. The Red Cross could not be reached for comment.
The storm rattled Central Florida for hours on Saturday.
The National Weather Service issued at least six tornado warnings for the region, and the public reported tornado sightings from College Park north of downtown to the Ferncreek and Wadeview Park areas south.
Reports of scattered damage stretched from Ocala to parts of Brevard County.
The heavy rains and high winds were part of the eastern edge of Tropical Storm Cristobal, which made landfall on the Louisiana coast Sunday.
Tony Cristaldi, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Cristobal isn’t particularly intense, but it is wide, engulfing two-thirds of the Gulf and reaching inland to Orlando.
“It just goes to show you how far-reaching a system like this can be,” Cristaldi said.