After tornado strike, Melbourne neighbors start to clean up, make repairs amid damage zone
Without warning, the power started flickering while Rhonda Shoup was washing dishes Thursday evening. Then her husband, Rick, abruptly yelled, "Get away from the window!" seconds before the tornado's swirling winds barreled into their Madison Avenue home.
The EF0 twister tore a brief path of destruction through the heart of Melbourne's Bowe Gardens subdivision, ripping off roofing, toppling trees and scattering debris across yards and streets. Swirling winds yanked the center console out of Rick Shoup's Scout 155 Sportfish boat and sent it flying aloft above their neighbors' houses — before dumping it to the ground along Sarno Road.
"Broke a window in my vehicle. Every tree in our backyard is down, and they're 20-plus year-old-trees. So they're huge," Rhona Shoup said Friday morning, standing in her driveway amid broken branches and toppled flowerpots.
"Someone's roof is in the yard," she said.
Twister: EF-0 tornado hits Melbourne neighborhood, damaging roofs and downing trees
After a National Weather Service team conducted a damage survey, meteorologists determined a weak EF0 tornado packing peak winds of 75 mph touched down from 5:56 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday. No injuries were reported.
Friday morning, white American Red Cross vans and various construction-contractor vehicles crisscrossed the Bowe Gardens tornado damage zone. Roofers installed tarps and performed inspections on damaged homes, and unfortunate homeowners and tenants cleaned up the twister's mess.
About the Melbourne EF0 tornado
The tornado's 1.1-mile-long path of damages extended up to 75 yards wide, the NWS reported. Specifically, the twister struck in the heart of Bowe Gardens — which features streets named for U.S. presidents — just northeast of the intersection of Sarno and Croton roads.
"The tornado touched down near Adams Avenue and moved south-southeast toward Sarno Road. In this area, multiple homes homes experienced carport, roof, siding, and soffit damage. Several trees were uprooted or partially uprooted, large tree branches were scattered, and a few power poles were snapped," the NWS damage survey said.
"As the tornado moved south of Sarno Road into the Ixora Park neighborhood, it continued to produce sporadic damage to trees, fences, and collapsed a pool enclosure at one home," the survey said.
6/28/24 | An additional survey was conducted this morning on yesterday's Melbourne tornado. The updated track can be found below. The rating of the tornado remains an EF-0. pic.twitter.com/T2u74scNxs
— NWS Melbourne (@NWSMelbourne) June 28, 2024
"The tornado went through a wooded area on the north side of Melbourne Airport affecting trees and a few hangars before dissipating," the survey said.
How did the tornado form? The Atlantic sea breeze’s weak westerly flow was “kind of pinned” along the Interstate 95 corridor throughout the day, said Melissa Watson, a meteorologist at the Melbourne NWS station. Then a frontal boundary approached, tracking from west to east.
“When the storm passed over and interacted with the sea breeze, that spin-up just occurred,” Watson said.
Covered with broken glass 'from inch to inch'
Gayle McCulloch, a retiree who has lived in Bowe Gardens since 1987, narrowly escaped injury when the tornado struck without warning.
"I had just left this bedroom to go into my kitchen. All I got was as far as to turn on my stove to start my dinner — when I heard this loud crash. And it was all glass," McCulloch recalled.
"All four panes. Because the wood went right into it, and 'crash.' My whole entire bedroom literally, from inch to inch, is just covered in glass. All my furniture got knocked over," she said.
"But thankfully, compared to a lot of other people in this neighborhood, I'm very blessed," McCulloch said. She spoke Friday morning standing outside her home, gesturing toward plywood sheets that were newly nailed over her shattered bedroom window.
'Oh my God. It's a tornado!'
Amanda Dyke and her family live on Washington Avenue, one street north of Adams Avenue. And they consider themselves fortunate. They believe the funnel cloud passed directly over their home — right before it touched down and tore most of the roof off their neighbor's house on the south side of Washington Avenue.
Her daughter, Chloe Dyke, 18, had noticed their backyard neighbor's pool cover start flopping around in the wind.
"I looked, and everything started swirling. And I was like, 'Oh my God. It's a tornado!' So I grabbed my mom and all my kids and ran into the bathroom," Amanda Dyke recalled.
Chloe Dyke, who graduated from Eau Gallie High in 2023, said she is terrified of tornadoes. But she was taken aback at how quiet the swirling winds were, and by how quickly they passed overhead.
"I've always had nightmares about tornadoes my entire life. So this was completely astounding," Dyke said Friday morning, standing in her driveway. Across the street, four roofers labored to stretch plastic sheeting atop her neighbor's wind-ravaged roof.
"I prefer a hurricane to a tornado. I prefer having warning. There was no warning. It was here, then it was gone," Dyke said.
"And it's terrifying thinking that that could have been our house," she said.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Melbourne EF0 twister struck houses packing 75 mph winds, NWS reports
