‘OMG, I think it’s a tornado!’ See a severe storm rip through a Florida Winn-Dixie

Madeleine Marr
·2 min read
15

A Florida woman had a scary shopping experience Thursday evening when a storm ripped through a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Okeechobee.

On her Facebook page, Jodi McWaters posted a few harrowing cellphone videos showing her friends and followers a snippet of the excursion.

Emergency managers reported that the severe weather ripped through Okeechobee County around 6:45 p.m. Nearby St. Lucie and Indian River counties were also affected.

“When you’re picking up a birthday cake for your dad and a tornado whips through,” reads the caption with clips that show part of the ceiling broken away and rain gushing into the store by the fruit and flowers. Fierce winds and pounding rain can be heard as workers and customers stand around trying to get a handle of the situation.

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In the comments section, a friend wrote that she is lucky to be OK and “God is gracious.”

“He sure is,” agreed McWaters in the replies, saying that the storm “came up fast.”

“Three minutes later and I would have been in the parking lot walking to my car.”

The shopper says at first it began “pouring, then howling, then sounded like a train coming through, and the building started shaking, with ceiling tiles falling, all within a matter of minutes.”

She goes on to say a friend a couple of blocks away by a Walmart was not as fortunate, stuck in the elements in her car at a light.

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“Her car started shaking and the sky went from clear to black, with things flying across the road,” said the post. “She didn’t think she was gonna make it home.”

McWaters told the Miami Herald Friday that she was checking out at the register when the weather turned in a matter of seconds.

After sending her dad a text saying she would be late for the celebratory dinner (“OMG, I think it’s a tornado!” she wrote) the wind “picked up dramatically, and immediately the doors flew open, the building began to vibrate,” she said.

While McWaters and other people were waiting for the storm to pass, it “started pouring inside the store,” she said, adding that the market was soon evacuated. “You could see the sky where the tiles had been.”

The story ends well: McWaters did get her cake, and made it to Dad’s dinner, 45 minutes late.