A fast-moving storm ripped through a western Boca Raton community late Wednesday afternoon, tearing the roof off a pool gazebo and damaging a nearby fence.
The damage was reported in the 9300 block of SW 8th St. in the Boca Dunes complex.
“It felt like Wizard of Oz,” Myron Robinson, who lives in a third-floor condo nearby. “You just see stuff flying everywhere.”
“It’s a scary situation when you start to see the winds getting up to that velocity,” he said.
So forceful it pulled part of the roof through the pool, others ripping down portions of this fence toward the northeast. The highest wind gust clocked at 54 mph in nearby Deerfield Beach.
“This storm didn’t last five to six minutes,” said Jim Stone who has lived in the complex for 38 years.
“Never, never this much,” he said. “We got a job here to do and what can you do, you know?”
Trees nearby bent in that same northeast direction.
“People in Florida that’s lived here you can tell people what you need to do but until you experience something like this it makes you think. Stay away from the windows and doors,” Robinson said.
A downed tree was also spotted on SW 54th Avenue in the Sandalfoot Cove community. The tree toppled over a car, no one was reported hurt.