PALM BEACH GARDENS — Elieth Strunk’s husband took a video of a tornado swirling outside while she and her children hid in the office of their Avenir home. Then the 140-mph force of nature headed straight for their yellow, two-story, Key West-style home.
Marcel Strunk ran to safety through their sliding-glass door. It shattered into thousands of pieces seconds later.
“We weren’t even in the path” of Hurricane Milton, Elieth Strunk, 34, said outside her house Thursday as she and her neighbors surveyed the chaos of flipped cars, chipped roof tiles, uprooted trees and piles of debris in their Windgate neighborhood off Northlake Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens .
“That’s what is most shocking. I thought it was all going to be north of here, and then all of a sudden, there was a tornado!”
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The twister busted through all of the house’s windows and dropped heaps of water, trees and dirt onto the back patio. The Strunks spent Thursday cleaning up. Their home, where they had moved six months before, was caked in the refuse of the storm.