Feb 13, 2008 5:47 pm US/Eastern
Tornado Damages Broward Homes
Thousands Were Without Power In Early Morning
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ―
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A Ft. Lauderdale neighborhood was damaged by a small tornado which left the area without power Wednesday morning.
CBS
A train of thunderstorms rolled across the Everglades and into South Florida overnight, bringing a amall twister to Broward county, which caused damage in a number of neighborhoods as well as a lightning strike at a South Miami-Dade home. Power was out in hundreds of homes in Miami-Dade and Broward County.
A fierce blast of wind, apparently from a small tornado nearly hurled Fred Alicea out into the yard of his one-story home at 621 SW 31st Avenue in Southwest Fort Lauderdale.
Alicea dashed into the bathroom toward the center of the house and slammed the door. He said, "I could barely close the door, and everything inside was tossed around."
The wind mangled his Venetian blinds, blanketed the couch he had been sitting on with shards of glass and, worst of all, cracked his flat-screen, high-definition TV set.
He Aliciea is one of several people on Southwest 31st Avenue in the Melrose Park area whose homes sustained significant damage from the Tuesday night storm. They lost power for three or four hours.
Wednesday morning, they surveyed the damage. The yard was littered with debris. An awning was tilted upward at a 45-degree angle and some wood beams in a garage were split.
The unsettled weather prompted the National Weather Service to issue a tornado watch for Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties until 7 a.m. Wednesday, and tornado warnings started around 10 p.m. Tuesday across the Everglades and quickly moved into Broward County
"Most of the heavy thunderstorms remained over the Everglades," said
CBS4 meteorologist Jeff Berardelli, "Had they moved 20 miles to the east, we might have seen more tornadoes in Miami-Dade and Broward counties."
"The wind started to blow really bad," Lois Nording said, "Then this rumbling like this train coming through. It only lasted a couple of minutes, then it was over."
George Matis was out just after midnight after something damaged his roof and sent debris flying into his lawn.
"I heard it through the windows, and I was going to go outside and see if I could do something," he said, "But it was a good thing I didn't go outside. It just cut the roof, right across there."
Lloyd Louis watched the shed fly off the roof of his Houston Street home.
"I looked through the window and I could see my shed roof up in the air," he said, describing a whirling motion. "It was all over the place."
FPL said a few hundred people were still without power early Wednesday morning in Broward County, and about 1800 customers were without power in Miami-Dade county. Power crews were hampered in repair efforts by lingering early morning thunderstorms.
Berardelli said the worst of the unsettled weather has moved though South Florida, allowing the National Weather Service to end the tornado watch as scheduled, but a cold front moving down the Florida peninsula could bring additional rain and storms later Wednesday.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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