Milton's deadly jolt in St. Lucie. 'We were prepared for a hurricane, but not a tornado'

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — 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.

Deputies stood guard outside the entrance of the neighborhood Friday, not allowing media to enter. But, drone footage of what remained of the 330-acre community shot by the Miami Herald showed several homes splintered, alongside piles of debris and overturned vehicles strewn throughout the streets.

Convoys of police cars went in and out of the neighborhood throughout the day, and tow trucks exited with badly damaged cars tied to their flatbeds.

There were actually two confirmed tornadoes in the area that day that occurred minutes apart, according to the St. Lucie County Emergency Operations Center — corroborated by accounts from residents of Portofino Shores, a neighborhood next to Spanish Lakes to the south off Kings Highway.

That community, with concrete, cinder-block homes, escaped without any deaths or major injuries, but not without significant damage to roofs, windows, parked cars, trees and yards. Traumatic memories scarred residents as well.

“It was terrifying,” said Melissa Cline, standing in her driveway Friday, as her 4-year-old daughter clung to her — as she has since the family took refuge in their laundry room during the minutes of terror spawned by the tornadoes.

‘The kids were terrified’

The confirmed tornadoes were part of 160 tornado warnings issued statewide on Wednesday by the National Weather Service, the second-most warnings issued in a single day in one state in the country, according to Iowa State University records. On Wednesday evening, Hurricane Milton slammed into Siesta Key, a barrier island off Sarasota, packing 120 mph winds.

While Cline spoke, neighbors helped each other clean yards, and roofers already began the initial stages of repairs, boarding up holes and laying down tarps. Electricity was out throughout the neighborhood, which was humming with gas-powered generators Friday afternoon.

“So, the first one came, and we took shelter, and we thought we were okay. And, then the second one hit, and it was just awful. The kids were terrified.”

Despite putting their shutters up, the Clines lost several windows, sustained major roof damage and significant rainfall entered their house.

“People say it sounds like a train,” Cline said of the howling wind a tornado produces. “But, it’s a noise you can’t describe.”

Gapkaloff took a nap after he put his shutters up, only to wake up about two hours later to the sound of shattered pieces of tiles from neighbors’ roofs hitting his home.

“It was like somebody was shooting a machine gun at the shutters,” he said. “And, the house shook.”

A tree branch broke off and hit his roof, the weight of the limb knocking out the glass on the corner top-floor side of his home where his two young sons and their friends were playing. The boys made it out of the room, and the family took refuge in the laundry room downstairs, Gapkaloff said.

When the winds died down, Gapkaloff tried opening the front door, but a downed tree blocked the entrance to the home. He then tried the garage door, but it was knocked off its tracks. After hammering it back into place, he was able to emerge from his house.

Ripped off shutters

Many residents shared stories about how, regardless of putting up shutters, windows were blown out from the tornadoes’ massive pressure. Gusts of anywhere from 136 to 165 mph ripped shutters from houses. And, several people spoke of pressure mounting so intensely inside homes that the coverings of their ceiling attics sucked upwards and popped.

“It’s something I never experienced in my life,” said Tracy Belle, 46, who before moving to Florida six years ago with her husband Jim and their two children, grew up in hurricane-prone New Orleans.

“So, we’re used to hurricanes. But, since we came here, I thought we lucked out by not having a hurricane,” Belle said. “We were prepared for a hurricane, but not a tornado.”

Shortly after Donna Sturtsman came home from work, she received a warning on her cellphone that a tornado was in the area. Like many lifelong Floridians accustomed to hurricanes, Sturtsman, 73, didn’t worry about tornadoes, so she basically dismissed the message.

That was, until she heard the tell-tale “freight train” sound of cyclonic winds outside her home. She grabbed her two dogs and ran into the bathroom.

“All I heard was all this crunching and noise and glass breaking. It was horrendous. I’ve never been in anything like this before,” she said.

Steel buildings, family business destroyed

When traveling north on Kings Highway, it’s apparent the tornadoes exacted a toll miles before delivering their fatal blow to Spanish Lakes. Downed power lines and uprooted, shorn trees along the roadside were among the first clues. Then, the twisted steel of ravaged commercial buildings, like those of the Kings Highway Industrial Park and a large steel building owned by the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department, presaged what lay ahead.

Farther up the road, at 2001 Kings Highway, Al’s Family Farms, a multi-generational citrus packing plant, roadside ice cream and gift shop and Mexican/American eatery, was destroyed.

Owner Jeff Schorner, 64, has been running the business that his father Al started in 1977, since 2003. Jeff and his wife Sharon finished work and were heading home Wednesday when they got a call from their son Brad, a St. Lucie County Fire Rescue firefighter. He was at the Orange Avenue intersection about a mile away and saw the tornado approaching and destroy a group of warehouses.

“His words were, ‘It’s like the hand of God just swept the warehouse buildings off the ground. The next thing you know, they were off into the clouds,’” Schorner said.

Schorner said his son was adamant that his parents should seek shelter in the buildings on the property, but they had already left to go home about two minutes before the frantic phone call. In hindsight, that was a good thing.

“That’s where we were,” Schorner said, pointing to the destroyed packing-plant building behind the ice cream shop.

Most of the people who spoke with the Herald, in the wake of two major hurricanes in Helene and Milton over the past few weeks, and reeling from catastrophic tornadoes, said they don’t plan on leaving the state.

“No. It’s not typical,” said Gapkaloff, the man putting up his shutters.

Schorner said he plans to rebuild his family’s business. It may not initially be selling ice cream and food by the roadside. But, he will get his operations up as soon as possible packing Florida oranges, grapefruit and peaches, he said.

“We’re resilient. We come from a long generation of fishermen and farmers,” he said. “We come from different stock from back in the day.”

On the side of Kings Highway, in front of the remains of his business, which he runs with his youngest son, Matthew, Schorner flew his American flag at half staff “for the folks who lost their lives at Spanish Lakes.”