MASCOTTE, Fla. – Weather officials investigating Friday whether a tornado touched down in Lake County, damaging homes and toppling trees and power lines, found the weather event was not a tornado.
The National Weather Service surveyed damage to homes and near a church in Mascotte on Thursday morning.
“After surveying the storm damage in the Mascotte/Groveland area, the NWS has determined the weather event on Thursday morning was not a tornado, but straight-line winds,” Lake County Emergency Management officials said.
A possible tornado was suspected to have caused damage in Sanford.
No injuries were reported in either area.
Lake County Fire Chief Jim Dickerson said one home was pulled 20 feet from its foundation while Tuscanooga Baptist Church pastor James Madison and his wife were inside.
“You’ll be amazed anybody came out of that house alive,” Dickerson said.
Madison said he and his wife were asleep when their entire house was picked up by heavy winds. He said his wife woke him up after hearing the devastation.
“She went to hollering, ‘Get up, get up, get up,’ and by that time, the roof went off. Boom,'” Madison said.
Meanwhile, part of a roof of a Sanford business was torn off in one of a line of severe storms that moved through Central Florida. The damage took place on Church Street, southwest of the Central Florida Zoo.
The zoo also sustained damage, but none of its animals were harmed.
by Daniel Dahm (2019, Jan 25) WKMG
