PEMBROKE PINES, FLA. (WSVN) - A tornado passed through several residential areas as Hurricane Ian churned offshore.
Tuesday night, a Pembroke Pines neighborhood was barely damaged when the tornado passed by.
Gill lives in the neighborhood near Pasadena Elementary and said around 7:30 p.m., he received a tornado alert on his phone, which led him to take a look outside and see what was occurring.
“I looked outside and heard the familiar freight train sound, locked up the doors and all of us went into the interior bathroom inside the house,” he said. “You can actually hear it through one of the doors that goes out to the patio. It was extremely loud, so we didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“It sounded like a train coming right through the kitchen,” said a woman in a pink shirt.
Gill said it had to have been a tornado that didn’t stick around that long.
“I’ve never heard a sound like that in any of the storms, and I’ve been here a long time,” he said. “I think it was about 45 seconds, and then it was just quiet.”
Some of the homes experienced power outages but for Gill, at least, his power came back on.
Once the coast seemed to be clear, Gil was curious and decided to take a look outside.
“It wasn’t clear when you walked out, and the garbage can had moved a little bit, and you go, ‘OK, that’s kind of interesting,'” he said. “But once you go up the street here and down west on Pasadena Boulevard, you can see where all the damage was.”
Gill told 7News that when he came outside he also saw someone in their car had been trapped under a tree, presumably caused by the strong winds of the tornado.
Neighbors helped the person get out of the car and began cutting up the tree.
“The whole neighborhood came together, right? Clear the road for everybody, get the first responders in to help anyone that is hurt,” said Tyler Willis. “A lot of branches down, a lot of cars not looking too good, but the whole neighborhood is coming together, which is good thing. It’s good to see the community coming together.”
Gill said his neighbors are good people and always help each other out.
“Neighbors were here just trying to help each other,” he said. “Yeah, they’re all good people.”
Hurricane Ian may be targeting the west coast of Florida but South Florida is surely feeling its effects with the outer rainbands, but Gill said he’s been through this before.
“I’ve been through Andrew, I’ve been through Wilma, and all the other ones in between, but this one is definitely the most unusual and was basically my first tornado,” said Gill. “I’ve never experienced it before.”
There was no extensive damage to any homes in the area.
At North Perry Airport, strong winds caused some damage to planes.
A total of 17 planes were damaged by the strong wind gusts of Hurricane Ian.
Video shot by Steven J. Grey shows two planes tangled on the tarmac along with several planes flipped over.
“There was gas, fuel all over the place. It’s a hazmat situation,” said Grey.
Several plane parts were flown off, along with planes that had been tied down for an event.
The winds had proved to be too strong for the small aircraft.
“It’s pretty messed up. There are hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of aircraft completely destroyed here,” said Grey.
Grey keeps an eye on the traffic for Today In Florida, and Tuesday night he had gotten an alert about the damage at the airport.
“I was watching our station (7News) and you see that it went through University and Miramar, and I said let me come to North Perry and see what the damages is,” he said, “and sure enough, it’s a bad day here.”
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, another tornado had touched down in another neighborhood, at 46th and Washington, across from Orange Brook Elementary.
Some homes in the area had extensive damage. One home even had its back patio completely ripped off, along with its fence line destroyed.
“Everything is torn, the whole tree in the front is ripped off. We went to our neighbor from across the street, the street sign is all ripped off,” said a family member of the home. “I am really shocked. This has never happened to me, personally, I’ve never been through something like this. I was really scared. I’m not normally a person who cries in situations like these, but when I was in the bathroom, I got really overwhelmed and started crying ’cause I thought, ‘Oh, wow, this is it.’ But thank God everything is OK.”
Neighboring homes had tiles ripped from the floor, tree branches broken and one car had been damaged as well.
Many people in Broward County have experienced tornados, but families in Davie believe they did too.
Around 1 a.m., on Wednesday, a household residing in Sunshine Village said they heard loud noises that woke them up as they received alerts on their cellphones of tornado warnings in their area.
The mobile home park was hit with severe weather and members of the Lee family think it was a tornado.
“It was terrifying,” said Caden Lee, whose family moved into the house three months ago. “We had to barricade the windows.”
Pieces of rooftops were torn off and debris surrounded the homes on the property as residents gathered to witness the damage.
At least four trailer homes were damaged along with at least two vehicles.
“I’m glad the tornado didn’t tip the whole house over,” said Caden.
Caden’s mother was grateful her family was OK.
It is still unknown if the storm in Davie was a tornado.
Most of South Florida, though, would have been spared because Ian had shifted towards the west coast and north, and outside the cone, but thankfully, officials told 7News no injuries have been reported.
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