PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) - Residents in northern Palm Beach County opened up about the frightening moments when a powerful tornado barreled through their neighborhoods, as well as the path of destruction it left behind.
The scope of the damage caused by Saturday afternoon’s twister could be easily seen by air.
The National Weather Service in Miami confirmed an EF-2 tornado hit Palm Beach Gardens.
Andrew Laybourne grabbed his phone and recorded video after he spotted the tornado from his balcony just after 5 p.m.
“That’s a tornado. Yo, that is a tornado. Holy [expletive]!” he is heard saying in the video.
Laybourne said he he had no idea how close the twister would get.
On the ground, a storm spotter was even closer when the strong winds tossed another car into the intersection with its headlights still on.
“This is the scariest thing I’ve ever been in. Oh, my God. Holy [expletive],” said the storm spotter. “I hope this stops. I just saw a car flipped over in front of me.”
It’s unclear whether or not someone was in the vehicle.
Another witness captured a different angle of the destruction, as others ventured out of their homes.
The path of the storm was clear. In a parking lot, three vehicles were stacked on top of one another.
“Stay away from these cars,” someone is heard saying in cellphone video.
At their peak, winds clocked at 130 miles per hour, smashing windows in car after car.
“The view off my balcony, I wasn’t able to see the water before, and now I have a water view from my place from all the tree damage,” said a resident. “There’s cars, there’s 20 to 30 cars in the parking lot that are totaled.”
The roof sheared off a bungalow where a father and his toddler son live. Thankfully, they were out of town.
Onlookers passing by to see the damage for themselves, as Florida Power and Light crews worked to get the power restored to those impacted by outages.
NWS officials said the tornado was on the ground for a little more than two and a half miles, traveling east of Interstate 95 and crossing A1A.
It caught many people by surprise.
“This was so sudden and so loud, that I knew it had to be a calamitous development,” said a resident who identified himself as Dr. Kaepernick.
The tornado lasted about 10 minutes.
No injuries were reported.
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