STUART, Fla. — Moving truck company owner Tribe Ackon had no choice but to pull over during Monday's storm.
"I've been through hurricanes, but never a tornado," Ackon said.
He was one of many people in Stuart impacted by what the National Weather Service confirmed to be an EF-0 tornado that touched down.
Ackon is the owner of Safely N' Swift Movers, and has lived in Port St. Lucie for the last 17 years.
At time of the storm, he was in the middle of a job and had just driven north over the Roosevelt Bridge before the winds picked up.
"Were you nervous at all, were you prepared to evacuate? What was your plan in your car?" WPTV reporter Joel Lopez asked.
"Just to grip tight to something, just to hold on cause that’s all we could really do. Can't really run anywhere," Ackon said.
The NWS reported that the storm eventually produced a waterspout over the St. Lucie River that then pushed onshore and into the North River Shores subdivision, just north of where Ackon had pulled over.
"I normally park my truck right here, so if we were home my truck would’ve gotten smashed as well," North River Shores resident Glenn Harte.
He said he had gone out to dinner during the time of the storm and came home to the damage.
"Hurricanes you get plenty of warning but this kind of stuff you get maybe a couple of minutes and then you got to figure stuff out really quick," Harte said.
He had a fairly large tree blown down in his front yard and some shrubbery in the back of his house that was also blown over.
"The home is fine from what we can see. I think we have a home inspection scheduled for the insurance company just to kind of check it out and make sure that everything is OK, the roof and everything," Harte said. "It’s just a matter of cleanup at this point."
Harte and Ackon both said thankfully no one was hurt, but that the next challenge was driving through town post storm.
"Yes, a lot of flooding," Ackon said. "Port St. Lucie Boulevard, 10 minutes that whole road was flooded."
