Whoa! I hope everyone is okay. Check out this insane tornado video out of Palm Beach Gardens. Note the flipped car! @CBS12 @natwxdesk pic.twitter.com/jh6FBBIi4C
— Michael Ehrenberg (@MichaelCBS12) April 29, 2023
Video captures tornado flipping cars as it touches down in South Florida
A vicious tornado flipped cars, uprooted trees and destroyed buildings Saturday as severe weather ripped through South Florida.
Horrifying video captured the moment the twister touched down and passed through a car that was traveling through Palm Beach Gardens around 5 p.m.
The vehicle was tossed into the air and spun twice before it was thrown back onto the pavement.
The twister continued to wreak havoc through the city, and caused a massive vehicle pile-up when it smashed into the Palm Beach Gardens apartment complex, footage shows.
“I watched it for about 20 seconds to see which way it was going to move and then obviously, when I saw it kind of closing in toward us, I immediately shut the slider, went back in, huddled in the bathroom, the building started to shake, there was a lot of noise for 20 to 25 seconds,” Andrew Laybourne, an apartment resident, told WPBF.
The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado touched down in the city.
The agency is still in the process of surveying damage along its path and will rank the strength of the tornado in the coming days.
Meteorologists had warned the state to expect extreme weather and possibly tornados through the weekend.
NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center placed about 12 million people across Florida and southern Georgia in a Level 2 risk for severe weather.
The thunderstorms were traveling across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas, which was hit with hail and powerful winds Thursday.
Officials said the peninsula could also be in for damaging winds, tornadoes, large hail and heavy rainfall through Saturday night.
“Additional strong to severe thunderstorms remain possible across our area during the overnight hours into Sunday,” the NWS said.
“A second line of strong to severe thunderstorms is forecast to develop during the early morning hours and move across the area through Sunday afternoon.”
At least 4,000 customers lost electricity in the storm, but most regained power by Friday evening, according to PowerOutage.us.