Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Weather wallops South Florida
It rained, it thundered, it hailed and two — possibly three — tornadoes swept through Broward and Palm Beach counties all in the span of an hour on Tuesday afternoon.
A tree toppled into a Fort Lauderdale house, thousands lost power and hundreds of flights were delayed but there was a cherry on top — a rainbow stretched north to south over the 17th Street Causeway in Fort Lauderdale once the storminess died down and no injuries were reported.
The turbulent conditions began about 3:36 p.m. when numerous weather spotters confirmed seeing a funnel cloud over downtown Fort Lauderdale. The National Weather Service was still verifying Tuesday evening whether it had touched down in the area.
Two tornadoes were confirmed, one at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and another along U.S. Route 98 in the western portion of Palm Beach County, said Barry Baxter, a weather service meteorologist.
The airport tornado caused 225 delays, 18 cancellations and a 2-½ hour closure of the north runway while crews removed debris, said Greg Meyer, the airport’s spokesman. A baggage cart caused minor damage when it blew into a general aviation aircraft on the north side of the airport, he said.
Jason Holloway caught sight of the apparent tornado over Fort Lauderdale from a 42nd-floor balcony. He used his cellphone to record seven seconds of it before darting to safety.
“I was surprised it looked as big as it did,” said Holloway, 43, a pilot and boat captain who moved from Dallas last year. “It looked like it was the real deal.”
Holloway, who lives in a condo at the Icon building, watched the weather conditions worsen. When he spotted the funnel cloud and then the sky turn “kind of greenish,” he tapped record on his phone.
The weather whipped up a deluge of emergencies for Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue. From 4 to 6 p.m., firefighters responded to 38 calls, well above the hourly average of six to 10, said Battalion Chief Greg May.
The calls ranged from live wires down and utility fires, to flooded streets and a pedestrian getting hit by a car, he said. No other injuries were reported, he said.
“That was a pretty bad storm,” May said. “We weren’t expecting that, it just came out of nowhere.”
The worst of it, May said, was a tree that toppled onto a house at 422 NW Seventh Terrace.
Amid the strong weather, the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning and later a severe thunderstorm warning for parts of Broward County. The last warning expired at 5 p.m. as the storm moved out of the area.
Residents in Davie and Plantation reported hail. About 9,000 Broward County homes were without power Tuesday evening, said Lauren Hills, a spokeswoman for Florida Power & Light.