FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Small tornadoes hop-scotched through south Florida Thursday causing widespread damage and scores of minor injuries.
One twister hit on one side of the Pompano Beach service plaza on the Florida Turnpike, leaped over the restaurant and auto service stations and touched down again in the parking lot, overturning an 18-wheel truck and damaging several autos. The driver was not in the truck at the time.
'We were lucky it didn't hit the restaurant or gas stations,' said Florida Highway Patrol dispatcher Kevin Cartwright.
The tornadoes were embedded in a storm front that thundered out of the Gulf of Mexico and ripped across south Florida at 50 to 60 miles per hour, said forecaster Ray Biedinger at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The weather bureau posted a tornado watch in 34 counties stretching from Key West to north of Daytona Beach.
In addition to the twisters, the storm pelted several counties with hail the size of 50-cent pieces, lightning strikes, and tore down trees, utility poles and lines.
Hardest hit were Collier County, eest of Naples on the Gulf coast, and Broward County, west of Fort Lauderdale on the east coast.
'We've had 17 separate reports of tornadoes,' said Broward's director of emergency preparedness, Arthur St. Amand. 'They were in a line from the southwestern corner of the county to the northeast, so we don't know if it was one tornado bouncing through or many.'
St. Amand said total injury and damage reports were being compiled, but 'we've had numerous reports of minor injuries -- none serious, thank God.'
At Lighthouse Point, a school bus hauling 16 students was lifted off the ground but not overturned. 'It picked up one side of the bus and let it down,' said Stan McCall, transportation director for the Broward school system.
'It looks like a war zone,' said Bob Perks, a Lighthouse Point resident. 'Power lines were popping and cracking, red, blue and yellow. It looked like fireworks.'
McCall said another school bus driver was showered with glass when wind blew out all the windows on the right side of the bus moments after he had discharged his students at Crystal Lakes Middle School.
Sunrise Mayor John Lomelo declared a state of emergency in his western Broward town 'until we get everything cleared up.' Tornadic winds blew open the doors of the Sunrise City Hall and covered the first floor with debris, he said.
'All of a sudden I hear a whoosh. My roof was torn off,' said Dorothy Eisenwasser of Margate. 'What a mess.'
Lt. Charles Marshall of the Collier County sheriff's department reported at least three tornadoes touched down near Naples between 6 a.m. and 7:30 a.m., downing power lines and trees and ripping the roof off a convenience store.
Two cars were flipped over by high winds near the Oasis Airport, Marshall said, but no one was injured seriously.
Florida Power & Light Co. reported slight damage in the Miami area, where about 3,600 customers were blacked out for nearly an hour.
'Broward County is a different story,' said FP&L spokesman David Wolverton. 'We lost eight feeders with about 1,500 customers each for as much as three hours.
