On the evening of the 25th, an EF-1 tornado struck Largo, Florida, north of St. Petersburg, at 110 miles per hour. Deborah Mettler, a 76-year-old woman, was hiding in her house when she was swept up into the air with her house. She landed 15 seconds later and miraculously only suffered minor scratches. Mettler recalled this miraculous experience and said it was just like a scene from the movie “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”. Her mobile home was uprooted and swept into the air, which was recorded by her neighbor Lori Gill’s webcam. Mettler was in the house from beginning to end, and she didn’t know what happened at first. “I didn’t even know I was in the air. I was busy practicing somersaults, rolling from one wall to the other.” “Finally, I was back in the bedroom. I was in the living room just now, and I stepped out, but luckily I did – the living room was gone. In other words, if I was still in the living room, it would be hard to say whether I would still be alive.”
Neighbors rushed to help her out of the messy home and found that she only had minor scratches and was not seriously injured. Another neighbor, Kathy, told WFTS TV, “It’s unbelievable how she survived.”
The area was extensively damaged after being hit by the tornado, and 40 to 50 homes in Ranchero Village were damaged to varying degrees.
Connie Kalter said that the 200-pound gas barbecue grill in her yard was blown away and hit the car, but the bonsai was unharmed.
The Tampa Bay Times said the tornado’s path was about 2 miles long and up to 100 yards wide. The fire department said no one was injured and no one requested emergency shelter. There were also damages to homes in the Pinebrook area of Pinellas Park, but fortunately no one was injured.
Weather Bureau expert Austen Flannery said that the weather factors in the past few days show that there is a high probability of “severe weather”, “more severe than the storms and thunderstorms we usually see.”
