Hours before Hurricane Milton slammed into the Gulf Coast Wednesday evening around Sarasota, Gary Gapkaloff decided to put up his aluminum storm shutters, despite living in Fort Pierce, more than 150 miles away on the opposite coast of Florida.
As he and a neighbor were about to cover one of the windows on his house in the Portofino Shores subdivision along Kings Highway, “This beautiful blue bird, full speed, flew into the window and hit it, and the impression of the body and the wings hit so hard, it bounced back about 10 feet.
“My neighbor said to me, ‘This was a bad omen.’”
Indeed, it was.
Late Wednesday afternoon, a powerful tornado funneled through 13 miles in St. Lucie County, before razing much of Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a 55-and-over gated community of mobile and modular homes situated on a golf course in Fort Pierce.
National Weather Service Melbourne Meteorologist Melissa Watson said the tornado packed winds between 125 and 135 mph and tossed more than 20 homes in the subdivision. The official death count as of Friday, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, was six people — all from the tornado.