Far from where Hurricane Milton's eye hit, tornadoes wrought unexpected damage

WELLINGTON, Fla. — Tony Brazzale, a diving boat captain who has lived for 10 years in his Wellington home in southeastern Florida, wasn't worried about Hurricane Milton. The storm's center was forecast to make landfall on the opposite side of the peninsula and then cross the state well to the north of his family.

But on Wednesday afternoon as the hurricane began to pummel the state, he stood outside his house and watched as a tornado loomed in the sky. He took video on his phone. The pressure dropped, and his wife said her ears were popping. It was time to go inside.

The twister shattered windows in the home, tore off roof shingles, ripped a tree from the ground and left branches and other debris scattered in the yard. Two days later Brazzale was wearing safety goggles and using a chainsaw as he cleaned up the damage.

“The hurricane was a nonevent for us,” he said. “Had it not been for an F-3 tornado, the entire thing would have been a nonevent for us.”

It was one of dozens of tornadoes spawned by Milton that hit South Florida far from where the storm made landfall near Sarasota. One of them killed at least six people in Spanish Lakes Country Club Village near Fort Pierce, about an hour's drive north from Wellington.

Meteorologists believe there may have been at least 38 tornadoes associated with Milton. The National Weather Service is still reviewing preliminary reports, which could take weeks, but it issued 126 tornado warnings in the state the day the hurricane hit.

When the review is complete, the storm could crack the all-time top-10 list for most tornadoes caused by a hurricane.

The highest number of confirmed tornadoes from a hurricane were the 118 unleashed by Ivan in 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hurricane Beryl, which hit in July of this year and is still under review, generated at least 65 confirmed tornadoes and currently ranks fifth.

By comparison, Florida overall typically sees about 50 tornadoes a year on average, according to Matthew Elliot, a warning coordination meteorologist for the Storm Prediction Center.

In Wellington, 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Tampa near West Palm Beach on the Atlantic Coast, sheriff's deputies spent Friday morning and afternoon helping residents clean up debris and move large trees that were obstructing roads.

Brazzale toiled to fix roof tiles and replace his shattered windows. Throughout his neighborhood, Pine Trace at Binks Forest, others were doing the same thing — cleaning up debris, putting tarps on damaged roofs and chain sawing fallen trees and branches.

The most important thing is that nobody died here, Brazzale said.

“It’s a significant pressure drop when one of those things goes over,” he said of the tornado. “You heard it. It was a freight train.”