2024-10-11 06:45:00
We expected waters to rise on the west coast of Florida after Hurricane Milton made landfall across the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, October 9th. It was a series of deadly tornadoes, which preceded the storm, on the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, much to the surprise of the inhabitants. They left five dead in the county of Saint Lucie (out of eleven registered in the state), also spreading terror a little further south, in Palm Beach Gardens, north of Miami, half an hour’s drive from Donald Trump’s residence.
Warren Newell, 70, was at the window at 5.10pm on Wednesday in his beautiful home in Palm Beach Gardens when an explosion began to be heard and shelter alerts sounded on his smartphones. He filmed the tornado that suddenly appeared before him, black, spinning, roaring. Until his partner Lisa Reves ordered him to move away from the window. “It was absolutely terrifying. You feel something is happening. Nobody expected it. “We were focused on the Gulf Coast, where the hurricane was coming from.” explains Lisa Reves, still in shock. “We no longer have electricity or drinking water, but we were lucky. Our neighbors less so. » On site, the devastation reveals very localized destruction: the tornado sucked into the air a car that was lying on a completely devastated lawn, and tore off the roofs of about twenty houses.
In the subdivision of small and modest houses in Santa Lucia, often prefabricated, Mike Davis, 81, was also lucky not to be hit by the tornado that hit his home in the late afternoon. This retired mechanic points out his neighbor’s house, whose roof has collapsed into a small canal, where he is advised to watch out for alligators. Like everyone else, he was taken by surprise. “Hurricanes are under control. But tornadoes are scary, they can happen in the middle of the night, and sometimes they go undetected.”he confides to us while mowing his soggy lawn.
As Milton crossed into Florida, about 126 emergency alerts sounded while 20 to 25 tornadoes were identified by weather service radars. Thirty-eight tornadoes were reported by eyewitnesses since Wednesday, while Florida has around fifty events of this type a year.
“We have more tornadoes than ever”
Mike Davis didn’t think about evacuating: the hurricane was crossing the Gulf of Mexico, it should have weakened. He also believes he couldn’t have done it. “I couldn’t leave, the highway was completely clogged”. But the traumatic arrival of the tornadoes makes him change his mind. “Next time I’ll evacuate. Maybe I’ll even move, maybe I’ll go back to West Virginia, where I was born, explains the octogenarian, who adds. We have more tornadoes than ever. It’s climate change. »
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