Our airplane from St. Louis was supposed to land in Fort Myers, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, around 10 p.m. Thursday Feb. 1. It was around 9:15 p.m. we got the announcement that made us brace ourselves.
“We’re heading into two bands of bad weather right now and there could be some turbulence,” the pilot said. “Please fasten your seat belts. I’ve also asked the crew to stop their [snack] service.”
He promised to get us out of one bad weather pocket, get us past the next and get us to our destination on time (and, unspoken, alive).
And, just as he said, the plane shook. It dropped a bit, leaving my stomach a foot or so higher. And after a bit we were out of it. “We’ll hit the second one soon so please keep your seat belts fastened and remain in your seats.” The second pocket, a little less turbulence. And we landed on time — and intact.
But the same could not be said that evening for Lady Lake, Florida, where killer tornadoes later that night obliterated homes and stamped out the lives of some 20 people…many of them killed while they slept. The AP:
Pulling blue tarps over the houses that still had walls, neighbors, inmates and National Guard troops worked in the rain Saturday to help residents begin recovering from tornadoes that chewed through the middle of Florida, killing at least 20 people.
The victims from the second-deadliest tornado in state history ranged from a 92-year-old man to 17-year-old Brittany May, killed by a falling tree that crushed her bedroom.
President Bush designated four central Florida counties as disaster areas, releasing millions of dollars in aid for recovery and individual assistance.
“It makes you sick to your stomach for what we saw,” David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said after touring the area Saturday morning with Gov. Charlie Crist.
Forecasters said Saturday that at least three tornadoes, with winds possibly as high as 165 mph, hit between 3 and 4 a.m. Friday, when few people were awake to hear tornado warnings on radio and TV.
They are in their 80s and they’ve been married 59 years, and they heard the roar and they knew what it meant. So Vern and Louedna Huber huddled in a hallway and they pulled sofa cushions over their heads and the roar grew louder.
Louedna turned to Vern. She said: ”I love you and I’ve had many wonderful years.” And then, a little after 3 a.m., the tornado arrived.
They survived, shaken but together. And still fortunate.
At least 19 people died, many others were injured, hundreds lost homes and thousands remained traumatized this morning after a vicious swarm of thunderstorms and predawn tornadoes ripped through Central Florida early Friday.
Two of the dead were high school students and one was an elementary school child, officials said. More than 2,600 buildings were destroyed or damaged over a 40-mile swath.
There is even a name for the kind of tornadoes that hit. They’re called supercells:
They call it a supercell — an especially deadly type of tornado that rarely strikes the state.
The one that hit Florida early Friday, killing at least 19 people and destroying hundreds of homes, was the most powerful tornado to hit the state in nearly a decade.
Supercells last longer than other kinds of tornadoes, which is why this twister stayed powerful enough to rip across three Florida counties.
It reached 140 to 150 mph, rated an EF-3 on the National Weather Service tornado scale, and was strong enough to splinter homes and toss semitrailer trucks.
Some unusual weather patterns that may be related to El Nino helped create the explosive combination of wind, moisture and low pressure that spawned the storm.
“You’re seeing the power of creation right in front of you,’’ said Tony Reynes, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Ruskin.
You can read the latest developments and a host of first-person accounts HERE on Florida Today’s blog.
PERSONAL NOTE: I’m here in Florida on a family matter and my own posts will not be back to normal until Tuesday.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.