Death, destruction and dismay: Tornado and strong thunderstorms cause widespread damage
Strong thunderstorms and at least one confirmed tornado killed one person and damaged homes in West Pensacola and Pensacola Beach, while torrential rains caused dangerous flash flooding across the area late Thursday and early Friday.
Pensacola officials warned residents on Friday to brace for more storms over the weekend as the saturated ground was a setup for the outbreak of more flash floods. Escambia County's Emergency Operations Center remained activated at Level 2 through Friday night.
Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves said police are ready to close any flooded roads and said people should stay off the roads, especially if more storms move into the area.
Storms began to kick off on Thursday evening after sunset and began to "train" over southern Escambia County, dumping huge amounts of rain.
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National Weather Service radar readings estimated that up to 17 inches of rain fell in some areas of Pensacola in the 12 hours.
In the 8 p.m. hour, southern Escambia County was put under a tornado warning, and the tornado was later confirmed to the Weather Service as being on the ground by law enforcement sources.
Radar indicated the tornado moved over the West Pensacola and Warrington areas near Bayou Chico before moving out over Pensacola Bay. It continued to move southeast, where it crossed Santa Rosa Island, causing damage to homes in Pensacola Beach.
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Escambia County Fire Rescue and the Emergency Medical Service responded to the 500 block of Coker Lane at 8:38 p.m. to a call of a person trapped under a tree that fell on their home during the storm. The person was pronounced dead on the scene, according to Escambia County spokesperson Andie Gibson.
No injuries were reported on Pensacola Beach.
Other water rescues occurred across the county, including one on U.S. 98, where a stranded motorist and an Escambia County Sheriff's deputy were sucked through a drainage pipe under the highway and miraculously uninjured.
The incident was caught on the officer's body camera and released by the Sheriff's Office on Friday.
"Can you (expletive) believe what just happened to us," Deputy William Hollingsworth said to the motorist after seeing he was OK.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons said the incident is an example of the exceptional courage displayed by law enforcement officers every day.
Escambia County evacuated more the 269 people from the Forest Creek Apartment complex, which is notorious for flooding during high-rain events.
Lightning was also an issue, with five homes in Santa Rosa County getting struck by lightning overnight in Pace, Gulf Breeze and Navarre.
A lightning strike also damaged one of the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority's largest wastewater pumping stations causing sewer overflows for nearly four hours Friday morning until repairs could be completed. The estimated gallons of spillage was 525,030, a detail that was omitted from an ECUA news release on the incident but reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and included in the DEP's public notice of pollution.
During the height of the storms, more than 8,000 Florida Power and Light customers were without power in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties, but by early Friday evening, the number had dropped to about 3,000.
Florida Power and Light said it was bringing in additional crews from outside of Northwest Florida to restore power as quickly as possible.
The exact timing for the next round of storms was uncertain on Friday, but the National Weather Service said more severe weather was expected with the possibility of large swaths of damaging winds in excess of 60 mph, hail up to two inches in diameter, and strong tornadoes throughout the weekend.
Weather service meteorologist Don Shepherd said that a stalled weather boundary that runs from northern Mississippi to south Alabama would continue to generate rounds of convective storms over the weekend that have intensity levels that are hard to predict.
"It's hard to nail down if it will be like this one that just came across, but potentially it could be," Shepherd said. "It may not be as bad. It's just hard to say."
"Things are not going to be changing a whole lot through the weekend, unfortunately," Shepherd said.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola tornado: Beach, westside see brunt of storm damage
