A powerful tornado struck yesterday in the community of Palm Springs North, located in the northwest of Miami-Dade County, leaving stunning images of flying furniture, downed trees, and a capsized boat.
The National Weather Service (NWS) specified that the damage was the result of strong winds and heavy rainfall, not a confirmed tornado, although the residents themselves described the phenomenon exactly as what they imagined a tornado would be like.
A witness recorded the moment when the furniture in his patio was sent flying, and his reaction says it all: "Oh my God, look at this. No, this is a tornado. Honey, all our furniture is flying. There's a tornado," he was heard saying in the video shared by @lifestyle_miami on Instagram.
The material damage was considerable: fallen trees, destroyed fences, part of a roof torn off, a backyard playset blown away, and a boat overturned on its side. Aerial images released by NBC Miami showed two trees and a fence down at the intersection of Northwest 78th Avenue and Northwest 181st Street.
Videos captured by the account Only in Dade showed fierce winds in a backyard, while residents reported visible waterspouts over a lake near Northwest 181st Street during the event, which some neighbors said lasted less than five minutes.
Adriana Martin, a local resident, described the experience as something she had never lived before. "You’re sitting in your house looking out the window enjoying the view, and suddenly you have this wild wind crossing your yard, gust after gust, and you start to see someone’s temporary roof flying through your yard," she recounted.
Martin also described his children's anguish during the event: "My daughter and son were asking me: what do we do, should we leave? Where do we go? We have no electricity."
Another resident told NBC Miami that his parents called him asking for help. "I was able to help them because they sent me a photo. Both trees fell down. Even the neighbor's mailbox flew away. It was quite crazy," he said.
Around 200 homes were left without electricity during the night on Tuesday, according to Florida Power and Light, although the outages were mostly restored by Wednesday morning.
Authorities confirmed that no injuries were reported as a result of the storm.
The event was part of a larger weather system that impacted all of South Florida. According to CBS Miami, earlier that same Tuesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a ground stop at Miami International Airport due to the weather conditions, resulting in hundreds of delays, with average wait times of thirty minutes.
NWS Miami posted on its social media: "A severe thunderstorm crossed the northern part of Miami-Dade County and the southern part of Broward County this afternoon."
The counties of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade remain under flood alert until 10 p.m. this Wednesday, with a weather risk level classified as two out of four.
Filed under: