DANIA BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - As South Florida deals with flooded areas due to heavy rains, it wasn’t just water damage for a community in Dania Beach that was hit by a tornado.
The strong winds Wednesday night ripped a roof off a home.
Homes on Jamaica Drive near Bryan Road were impacted by the heavy winds.
And it wasn’t just homes that were impacted.
Surveillance video captured strong winds blowing off the door of the New Dania Church of God and Christ.
“After I got home, got an alert from our ADT system that our front door was opened,” said the Rev. Jonathan Thomas, the church’s senior pastor.
That’s how Thomas learned his church had been damaged.
“I looked at the camera, and the door was literally on the floor,” Thomas said.
When he got to the church, he quickly realized that that wasn’t the only problem.
“Leaves and everything, all kinds of debris was in the church, and then afterwards we came out, we saw tree branches down,” Thomas said. “It blew a big portion of our roof off, and it is literally in the trees and all over the community.”
According to the National Weather Service, two tornadoes were confirmed in Broward County Wednesday.
The City of Dania Beach Thursday announced a state of emergency.
Residents in the area were up early Thursday morning trying to help each other clean up the mess after a scary night.
A storm ripped up a mobile home after dark, which left a trail of damage.
“We don’t know, we had a bad storm last night, about 10, 10:30 p.m.” said a resident.
“It started to spin like anything here, just on this street, Jamaica Street,” said another resident.
Pieces of homes were scattered throughout the neighborhood.
“There was rain and rain and rain, and at one moment, everything went quiet,” said resident Jade Robitaille. “I got goose bumps, and I said to my friend, ‘Something is happening,’ and then a few seconds after, we saw everything going. And that was so quick, so fast, I can’t really explain how quick this was.”
Daylight Thursday morning revealed the extent of the destruction.
Neighbors put on work gloves and got busy trying to help each other with repairs and cleanup.
“It’s crazy. It’s amazing,” said a resident. “I’m new in the community here and it’s the first time I see that, and it seems that that never happened before.”
“We’re lucky,” said another resident. “Nothing has damage in the house we’re in, but the neighbors.”
Several neighbors said what they heard sounded like a freight train in their community.
Thursday night, another round of showers soaked up homes at the mobile home park already in bad shape.
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