PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Port St. Lucie residents spent Monday cleaning up after a storm tore through the area Sunday night, leaving behind damaged structures, debris-filled pools and downed foliage.
The National Weather Service determined it was an EF-0 tornado, with 65-75 mph winds.
Aron Christiansen spent the morning pulling debris out of his pool after already retrieving furniture from the bottom. Video from a neighbor's camera captured the moment his patio broke apart during the storm. Half of the patio is now out on the curb, set to be salvaged for recycling.
"I looked out the windows last night, saw a bunch of debris flying. I thought it was birds at first; they were white, [so I] thought they might be ibises. [I looked] closer, and there's debris, and had about 10 seconds before it hit our house," Christiansen said.
Janelle Pierre-Louis said she was surprised by the amount of damage to her backyard foliage after dealing with damage at the front of her house first.
"My front door caved in; our door is kind of old. Dirt came through the cracks. It was a hot mess," Pierre-Louis said. "We've got to clean up and start all over."
Around the corner, Mitch Brewer had debris piled out front — most of it from a shed he had tied down.
"It looks like it caught some heavy updrafts and left," Brewer said.
Brewer said he had been thinking about demolishing the old shed at some point, but Mother Nature beat him to it. He said living in the mid-South made him familiar with tornadoes.
Florida sees about 65 to 70 tornadoes a year, according to the Florida Climate Center, and has a higher frequency per 10,000 square miles than any other state, including Oklahoma.
Marlene Torres was in a good mood Sunday night before returning home to find the storm had moved through her neighborhood.
"I had just come back from Jensen Beach celebrating my birthday, which is today," Torres said. "I came home and witnessed the tornado."
Her home was not damaged, but she needed an electrician to fix her meter.
"I'm the only one with no electricity because my power was more damaged than other folks in the area, so that is the situation, but I can't complain; it could be worse," Torres said.
Monday, August 24, is also the anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. Torres said she was living in Miami when the historic hurricane hit the region.
"You can't compare Andrew to this. It was life-altering for the longest time. The repairs took months and months and months," Torres said.
Torres said she is thankful not to have to go through that again.
"Here I am picking up sticks and stones," Torres said while laughing.
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