Tornado Churns Up Florida Rain, Wind And Snow Cause Power Outages In California

A tornado cut a five-mile-long swath through rural northern Florida early Saturday, injuring dozens of people and damaging or destroying scores of mobile homes.

“There are pieces of trailers in trees,” said Marion County Sheriff’s Lt. Joe Cobb. “Pieces of torn and twisted aluminum are all over the place. There are lawn chairs in trees. There’s a little bit of everything in trees.”

Farther north along the line of stormy weather that hit Florida, wind gusted as high as 145 mph in North Carolina, killing two people and causing dozens of injuries and extensive damage.

On the West Coast, more than 200,000 customers lost power early Saturday as a storm blasted California with heavy rain, wind and snow.

The stormy weather hit the Southeast as a strong cold front pushed eastward off the East Coast.

The northern Florida tornado touched down first at the town of Summerfield, about 20 miles south of Ocala. It damaged or destroyed several homes and stores in the crossroads community of about 500 people, Cobb said.

It sliced through pastureland toward the northeast, cutting a swath a quarter of a mile wide and about five miles long, then smashed into the Bird Island mobile home park where it did most of its damage, Cobb said.

“The tornado just smashed or really damaged about 150 homes,” Cobb said by telephone from Bird Island.

He said dozens of people were treated for broken bones, cuts and bruises.

One man who took shelter in his car was critically injured when the twister picked up his mobile home and slammed it down on the car, Cobb said.

In the Orlando area, about 50 miles southeast of Ocala, wind ripped off garage doors, tore shingles from roofs and toppled a few chimneys.

In eastern North Carolina, about 20,000 Carolina Power & Light customers lost power, spokesman Mike Hughes said.

Waves churned by the storm drove a 550-foot tanker aground in Beaufort Inlet near Morehead City, N.C., at the southern end of the Outer Banks, the Coast Guard said. The tanker was carrying fuel oil but was not leaking.

One person was killed in Bladen County and another in Johnston County, state officials said.

Twenty-two people were injured by a possible tornado at the Seven Springs community in southeastern Wayne County, emergency management spokesman Richard Proctor said.

Seymour Johnson Air Force Base near Goldsboro, N.C., reported a wind gust of about 145 mph, the National Weather Service said.

Just outside Fayetteville, N.C., a water tower toppled and smashed a mobile home, with one person suffering only minor injuries.

Saturday’s rough weather was a remnant of a storm system that iced roads from the Plains to the East Coast on Friday and was blamed for six deaths in Ohio, two in Arkansas, two in Oklahoma, two in Kentucky and one each in Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama.

In the West, the leading edge of a powerful series of storms slammed into northern California during the night.

In the San Francisco Bay area, 2.72 inches of rain fell in 24 hours in northern Sonoma County. Elsewhere, the community of Honeydew got 3.30 inches.

Up to a foot of snow fell in the northern Sierra Nevada and up to 4 feet was possible by today.

About an inch of rain fell on already saturated southern California, flooding some freeways.

On Friday, California Gov. Pete Wilson declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles and Orange counties.