Cape Coral tornado leaves uncertainty, destruction in its wake

It was just an ordinary Saturday night in January. Eugene Hicks was in the family room enjoying an NFL playoff game. His wife, Yvette Hicks, worked in the kitchen. But the sharp whistling winds that were about to shake their southwest Cape Coral home were anything but ordinary.

The kitchen window shattered. The Hickses still don't know if it was from a slammed lawn chair or the immense pressure difference that an EF2 tornado creates. The glass shattered all the same, cutting Yvette as she turned toward the family room. And then, as a freight train of wind and fury rode past, came the debris.

“You could hear it, all of it, everything it picked up and battered the house with,” Eugene Hicks said.

Hicks and his neighbors in Cape Coral couldn’t know it at the time, but they had just experienced an unprecedented tornado. National Weather Service Meteorologist Andrew McKaughan said the 132 mph winds of Saturday’s tornado were the strongest Southwest Florida has experienced since 1953.

“We’ll get EF0s or EF1s occasionally, but they’re not quite as strong as what we saw this Saturday,” McKaughan said. “And that’s all of Florida really, at least our part of Florida.”

The tornado damaged about 200 homes across southwest Cape Coral and did about $6 million in damage, according to the Cape Coral Police Department. Almost 2,000 residents were without power early Sunday morning. As of 10:30 p.m., Lee County Electric Cooperative said fewer than 800 remained without power.

“There was a lot of damage and it’s going to take time to get everything taken care of,” Cape Coral Police Department spokesman Dana Coston said.

The stormed was isolated to southwest Cape Coral and caused no damage to other parts of Southwest Florida, according to law endorcement.

The tornado touched down at 6:45 p.m. It lasted all of seven minutes and traveled 3.5 miles near Beach Parkway West between Chiquita Boulevard and Sands Boulevard.

In that short time, how could the National Weather Service tell that the peak winds of the tornado reached 132 mph?

“There’s been numerous studies that basically look at structures, what they’re made of and the impacts from debris,” McKaughan said. “So if you have this level of damage to this type of structure, you had this kind of peak wind speed.”

The Hickses described in detail the damage to their home. A grill was flung 30 feet into their pool. The pool screen cage was demolished, as were dozens of others in the neighborhood.

A two-month-old pool heater and the massive concrete slab it rested on? Ripped away from the home. Splintered palm trees were snapped as if by some giant.

And while snapped palm trees and property damage are no strangers to Southwest Florida hurricanes, hurricanes – through radar, satellites and other technology – provide days of warning.

Briana Campbell was at Tony Stirp's home in Southwest Cape Coral on Saturday night with her Chihuahua. The small dog wound up providing more warning than the early alarm system, frantically barking 10 minutes before the tornado arrived, she said.

“We got the warning text a minute after it had passed,” Briana Campbell, said.

Surveying the wreckage the next morning, Stirp shook his head.

“I’m just amazed no one was killed,” he said.

Repairs

The damage brought Gov. Rick Scott to southwest Cape Coral and summoned memories from his childhood in the Midwest.

“I remember all through school we’d have to go to the basement of the school because we’d have tornado alerts,” Scott said. “Our neighborhood got hit by tornadoes, our house never did but some of the areas where I lived they did. It’s a pretty scary time.”

Scott said the county and state emergency management departments would work to see if the assessed damage would meet the threshold necessary for state and federal dollars to assist with relief.

In the meantime, Yvette Hicks’ own efforts for finding her insurance agent were as clogged as the roads near the tornado’s path.

Where the tornado’s destruction leaves hundreds of Cape Coral’s residents is unknown. Fear of delayed relief efforts, scam artists and more worried public officials. Mayor Marni Sawiciki implored drivers and nonresidents to stay out of the area to let crews do their work. Coston said unlicensed or predatory contractors had him concerned.

“The last thing we want is for someone to be victimized twice,” Coston said.

But a second victimization could come in the form of another tornado.

“With how strong the El Nino pattern is, it brings this kind of weather event,” McKaughan said. “So it’s time for people to get prepared because it’s not out of the question to get a similar type scenario.”

 Storm Facts

Categorization: EF2

Peak wind speed: 132 mph

Touchdown: 6:45 p.m. Saturday

Time on ground: 7 minutes

Travel distance: 3.5 miles

Area most affected: Beach Parkway West between Chiquita Boulevard and Sands Boulevard.

Fatalities: 0

Serious injuries: 0

Estimated monetary damage: $6 million

Homes affected: Approximately 200

Residents without power: 2,000 as of Sunday morning

Total rainfall: Between 1 and 1.5 inches of rain