The National Weather Service has confirmed that Monday afternoon’s storm was an EF-1 tornado, with winds sustained at 90 miles per hour. The tornado lasted five minutes, carving a path of destruction two miles long and 1,000 feet wide. Most of the damage occurred from tree limbs falling into homes.
The Marion County Fire Rescue Technical Rescue team was dispatched to the Oak Run subdivision at 3:34 p.m. on Monday, April 20. Ladder 21, a part of that team, arrived on scene at3:49 p.m., and immediately began cutting its way through downed trees to gain entry into the neighborhood. The technical rescue team set up a command post at the intersection of Southwest 109th Street and Southwest 89th Avenue, and did interior searches of damaged homes to identify any potentially entrapped individuals. No injuries were reported.
Search crews surveyed the damages in both the Oak Run and Palm Cay subdivisions, finding approximately 60 homes damaged due to the storm.
Additionally, Marion County Building Safety deployed four inspectors to assess structural storm damage in the Oak Run, Palm Cay and Spruce Creek North subdivisions. At 9 p.m. on Monday, seven homes were declared unsafe and more than 50 were identified as suffering minor tree/wind damages. Inspection work continued on Tuesday.
