Tornadoes Hit Ft Myers, Florida

OneEyedDiva

OneEyedDiva

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I was talking on the phone with a friend who lives on Florida's west coast. She got a couple of tornado alerts by phone while we talked. She let me hear one of them but I couldn't hear it clearly. She said they were forecasting that one might hit relatively close to where she lives. Turns out it hit further north and destroyed a mobile home park in Ft. Myers.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story...ect-all-south-florida-until-3-p-m/6548517001/
 

I have a lot of respect for tornados after having a small one touch down in my back yard a few years ago. I was in the sun room watching the high winds blowing our pine trees around when a funnel came down and grabbed a fairly large pine. It twisted the tree off about 20 feet above the ground and tossed it to the side like it was a twig. The tree trunk was pretty close to being 2 feet in diameter, so it was pretty impressive. After it dropped the top of the tree about 20 feet away, it disappeared back into the clouds.
I had seen waterspouts at sea from a distance, but this was close up and personal since I was only about 35 feet away. @OneEyedDiva
 

I grew up on the west coast of Florida and as I recall this is pretty rare. We've been in Dallas for 16 years and I remember a few years ago around Christmas a tornado came really close to our area. I was huddled up in the coat closet under the stairs with a blanket over me. The tornado sirens were going and they were absolutely eerie!

I feel so bad for the people in the mobile home parks who lost so much. Considering today's news, I'm just waiting for the locusts.:(
 
dseag2 said:
I grew up on the west coast of Florida and as I recall this is pretty rare. We've been in Dallas for 16 years and I remember a few years ago around Christmas a tornado came really close to our area. I was huddled up in the coat closet under the stairs with a blanket over me. The tornado sirens were going and they were absolutely eerie!

I feel so bad for the people in the mobile home parks who lost so much. Considering today's news, I'm just waiting for the locusts.:(
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I have believed for over a decade now, that these extreme weather events will happen more frequently and start to impact areas that never or rarely had them. Yeah...these days locusts are not too far fetched! :rolleyes:

@Marie5656 Glad your niece is safe.
 
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A tornado will ruin your whole day. We had one in 1991 that tore off a chunk of our roof and threw it across the street. That let the pouring rain in to make everything soggy. They were able to close the roof up fairly quickly, but repairing the water damage inside took a couple of months.
 
Manatee said:
A tornado will ruin your whole day. We had one in 1991 that tore off a chunk of our roof and threw it across the street. That let the pouring rain in to make everything soggy. They were able to close the roof up fairly quickly, but repairing the water damage inside took a couple of months.
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yes we had a tornado rip off part of our roof too, in Spain.. I was home alone it was the most terrifying thing, it ripped up our palm trees as well
 
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We lived in Wichita, KS., for a few years, and rushing into the tornado shelter 3 or 4 times a years was routine. Luckily, the closest we got to damage was when one tore up a small shopping center about a mile away. We were glad to move out of that area....a person is lucky if they get a few minutes warning when one hits. The last one to hit our current area was almost 100 years ago....I hope that continues to be true.
 
Had nine tornadoes in Northeast Texas yesterday, strange only one trailer park was hit:oops:.

News camera caught a pickup in the wind swirls that accompany a tornado. Poor guy was trying to drive
through the swirls, got his pickup turned over-passenger side down.

The driver has sense enough to not try to exit pickup.
In less than a minute the swirls turned his pickup upright and he drove away.

No doubt you'll see it on You Tube...
 
We call mobile home parks here in Florida "Tornado Attractors".

Once, we were tent camping and a Tornado passed almost directly overhead in the night. No time to seek shelter. Yes, it DOES sound like a freight train going overhead. A large warehouse less than 3 blocks away was demolished by the twister.

I did have the experience of seeing a line of waterspouts passing by off the beach once on the east coast of Florida. When they'd hit the jetty....SPLAT! they'd disintegrate.
 
Yes, I left Texas during a "wintry mix", went on vacation for 10 days and came back to Tornado warnings. :( Just glad we didn't get any here in Dallas and I really feel for those in Texas that were affected. I hid in the coat closet with a blanket on top of me several Christmases ago when one came really close to our neighborhood and the sirens were going off. Scary stuff.
 
OneEyedDiva said:
I have believed for over a decade now, that these extreme weather events will happen more frequently and start to impact areas that never or rarely had them. Yeah...these days locusts are not too far fetched! :rolleyes:

@Marie5656 Glad your niece is safe.
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For real, consider the "Murder Hornets" now infesting the state of Washington. Or even "Killer Bees." Honestly, sometimes it really does feel like, "Where am I going and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
 
dseag2 said:
Yes, I left Texas during a "wintry mix", went on vacation for 10 days and came back to Tornado warnings. :( Just glad we didn't get any here in Dallas and I really feel for those in Texas that were affected. I hid in the coat closet with a blanket on top of me several Christmases ago when one came really close to our neighborhood and the sirens were going off. Scary stuff.
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This kind of thing can be so terrifying, I know.
My family and I were in Los Angeles in 1994 during the Northridge Quake. My husband was working nights then and I was home alone with 10 and two year old girls when the house started coming down around us.
Glad you came out of your situation okay, @dseag2
 

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