Far from where Hurricane Milton hit, tornadoes wrought unexpected damage

WELLINGTON, Fla. — Tony Brazzale, a dive boat captain who has lived in his home in Wellington, southeast Florida, for a decade, wasn’t concerned about Hurricane Milton. The center of the storm was forecast to make landfall on the other side of the peninsula and then cross the state north of its family.

But on Wednesday afternoon the hurricane As he began blasting the state, he stood outside his home and watched as a tornado loomed in the sky. He took video with his phone. The pressure dropped and his wife said her ears popped. It was time to go inside.

The twister shattered windows in the house, tore off shingles, uprooted a tree and left branches and other debris in the yard. Two days later, Brazzale wore goggles and used a chainsaw as he cleaned up the damage.

“The hurricane was a non-event for us,” he said. “If there had not been an F-3 tornado, the whole thing would have been a non-event for us.”

It was one of dozens tornadoes spawned by Milton that hit South Florida, far from where the storm made landfall near Sarasota. One of them killed at least six people at Spanish Lakes Country Club Village near Fort Pierce, about an hour’s drive north of Wellington.

Meteorologists believe there have been at least 38 tornadoes associated with Milton. The National Weather Service is still reviewing preliminary reports, which could take weeks, but 126 tornado warnings were issued in the state on the day the hurricane hit.

When the assessment is complete, the storm could make the top 10 all-time list of most tornadoes produced by a hurricane.

The highest number of confirmed tornadoes from a hurricane were the 118 that Ivan unleashed in 2004, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hurricane Beryl, which struck in July this year and is still under investigation, generated at least 65 confirmed tornadoes and currently ranks fifth.

By comparison, Florida sees an average of about 50 tornadoes per year overall, according to Matthew Elliot, a warning coordination meteorologist for the Storm Prediction Center.

In Wellington, 210 miles southeast of Tampa, near West Palm Beach on the Atlantic Coast, sheriff’s deputies helped residents Friday morning and afternoon clearing debris and moving large trees blocking roads.

Brazzale toiled to repair roof tiles and replace his broken windows. Throughout his neighborhood, Pine Trace in Binks Forest, others were doing the same: clearing debris, laying tarps on damaged roofs and chainsawing fallen trees and branches.

The important thing is that no one died here, Brazzale said.

“It’s a significant drop in pressure if one of those things passes,” he said of the tornado. ‘You heard it. It was a freight train.”

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Keller reported from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Isabella O’Malley of Philadelphia contributed.