'It looks like a bomb went off'

Times photo (1992) A 1992 photo taken from the air shows tornado damage on Elmhurst Drive in the Autumn Run subdivision in Pinellas Park.

By Times staff writers
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 2, 2002

Storms rolled in the morning of Oct. 3, 1992. Pinellas Park firefighters ran from one false alarm to another. About midmorning, weather watchers recalled a momentary calm before tornadoes skipped across mid Pinellas County, leaving behind four dead, millions in property damage and emotional wreckage that lasts even today. Twisters touched down on Treasure Island and in an unincorporated area near Largo, but the devastation was the worst in Pinellas Park. A police officer overheard on scanners struggled for words as he called for backup: "I don't know where I am. ... There's nothing here. ... It looks like a bomb went off."

This is the Neighborhood Times' coverage -- personal stories and the National Weather Service's minute-by-minute account.

Oct. 3, 1992:

A day of stormy weather turned fatal a decade ago when a tornado tore through neighborhoods, killing four and leaving behind almost $3-million in damage. Some of the witnesses to that day talk about how they remember it 10 years later.

Ray Hansen

Leader of the rescue crew first on the scene in Autumn Run. Hansen now trains Pinellas Park firefighters.

[Times photo: Dirk Shadd] Pinellas Park Fire Station No. 33 Training Chief Ray Hansen was one of the first firefighters on the scene 10 years ago. A Gibbs High School graduate, Hansen has been with the Pinellas Park Fire Department for 22 years.

"It was a kind of messed-up day. There was a lot of stuff going on." Lots of calls. Lots of false fire alarms from the storms that had blown in from the south.

Someone from the Bardmoor area called for help and as the fire engine passed through the Park Boulevard/66th Street intersection, it got "black and nasty."

The first call from Autumn Run came in. As they turned into the subdivision, Hansen was "looking at the grid map ... I said go to Cedarbrook and turn left and he said, 'Which one's Cedarbrook?'

"Every street we went by, the stop sign's blown over, laying in the street. ... That's when I looked up."

It was quiet. People were standing in their front yards not saying anything. Houses were just piles of bricks.

Firefighter/paramedic Burt Williams treated a child who had been cut by glass. Hansen told his three crew members, "Come on out front, I think we're going to have to set up a triage area. I think we're going to have to set up a mass casualty area."

Williams and Ralph Washington set up a medical center. Tony Rooney went to look for gas leaks and found a person trapped. Hansen estimated they treated 50-75 people in the 15 to 30 minutes before help arrived.

"What comes to my mind is the incredible amount of pink insulation that was everywhere. It looked like someone had gone berserk with a cotton candy machine and sprayed it everywhere." That meant a lot of people with fiberglass in their eyes.

The experience made Hansen realize the importance of practicing and repeating drills in order to be prepared and to help build the relationships between firefighters. I learned that the "bonds, the unspoken bonds between firefighters and their crews" are incredibly important. "The bond. You don't have to spell it out explicitly."

Hansen remembers that day, especially when the weather gets iffy. "Sept. 11 (of this year) was a day, as we're traveling up U.S. 19 ... to go to the fire chiefs' memorial service. This is almost like a replay of that October morning. ... You do have that mental image of what it looked like 10 years ago, so any time you have (similar weather), you pull out that mental picture and you compare."

Times photo: (1992) Gov. Lawton Chiles visited the area to survey damage left by the storm. Here, from the left of the picture, he talks to two Autumn Run residents whose home was destroyed.

Beth Lockwood

Executive director of the Pinellas County SPCA. In 1992, she was the shelter director.

Lockwood

"I was here at this very place taking in animals." After the tornadoes hit, the SPCA stationed ambulances in the Autumn Run subdivision. An employee with a megaphone told people that they were there to provide emergency medical care and boarding. Animal rescuers picked up a cat with a broken jaw and other injuries.

The SPCA treated "Kitty Cat," and, at first, the owners called frequently to check on it. But they ultimately abandoned the cat. An SPCA worker adopted it and named it Stormy. The cat died a couple of years ago of old age. All the other animals taken in from Pinellas Park eventually were returned to their families.

The Pinellas SPCA now participates in a statewide emergency support system, a response to Hurricane Andrew and the Pinellas Park tornado. A Bay Area Disaster Response team with more than 200 trained volunteers also has the equipment to help family pets after a disaster.

David Bilodeau

Pinellas County emergency management director

[Times photo (1998): Scott Keeler] David Bilodeau is the county's emergency management director. When the storms hit, he says, many of Pinellas Park's rescue workers were in Homestead, helping victims of Hurricane Andrew.

He was home monitoring the weather. Things seemed to be calming down, so "I jumped in the shower. About two minutes later. ... everything went off." Reports on Pinellas Park came in from 11:25 a.m. to about 11:56 a.m. The actual time of the tornadoes was probably about 3-4 minutes total. It strained the countywide rescue system.

Pinellas Park's system was strained even more because the city had about 30 people helping in Homestead, which was recovering from Hurricane Andrew.

The county learned many things. Some were simple, like having blank dry erase boards to coordinate rescue efforts. Another lesson was in coordinating the help that came in. The Civil Air Patrol came in without proper coordination and sent its teenage cadets into hazardous areas. "I remember being in Pinellas Park and all these kids dressed up in military uniforms and all these elderly people thinking they were National Guardsmen."

Peggy Altavilla, 54.

The tornado shattered the back windows of her Beacon Run home and then splattered the rooms with mud. She still lives in the house.

Her husband was watching a football game. The cable started to go in and out. He got up to look out sliding glass doors. "He could see the (palm trees) ... They were blowing straight up, like a vacuum cleaner pulling them straight up." Her husband "just literally threw" her into the bathroom.

"I'm still here in spite of it all. ... We didn't have any problems rebuilding. We decided to stay, actually, because it's home.

"I actually thought it would never happen again. I figured they got me once. It would never happen again. I'm good to go. ... It did leave us traumatized to a certain degree. ... You're not the same after that."

Altavilla has bought a weather alert radio. Loud noises are disturbing. "I freak. ... I've had some medical problems since then. They told me it was post-traumatic stress disorder."

The prospect of a hurricane hitting the area does not worry her as much as the possibility of another tornado. With a hurricane, you get three or four days' notice.

Some people who survived the storm have left the area, such as the family of Sambecca Shotts, Altavilla's next-door neighbor who died in her garage as her teenage son watched. The Shotts family tried to stay, but left after a year or two because the memories were too painful.

Bob Bray

[Times photo: Jamie Francis] Bob Bray was a Pinellas Park city employee when the storm hit. Since then, he has helped produce a booklet about preparing for disasters, and he hopes to put a copy in the home of every resident in the city.

As Pinellas Park planning director, he compiled the damage statistics. He also set up the Disaster Assistance Center. He's now in charge of the city's disaster preparedness program.

"I was shopping with my wife. We were in Tyrone Mall." When he got home, there was a message to come in at 6 the next morning. "Since it was Sunday, I knew it was bad." He went to work and spent the next two days staring at numbers as damage reports came in.

"When I did go out. . . . I was flabbergasted." At Oakhaven Drive, "I didn't recognize a single thing. This was basically ground zero. All I saw was rubble. . . . This was like something jumped down on the earth at this point and danced and tore everything up. . . . After that, I came back into the numbers."

Bray learned that "you can never be too prepared. . . Each and every occasion has a different personality. . . . Always be prepared to deviate from the recipe."

The city's disaster plan had just been rewritten. Afterward, it was rewritten again, as employees added things, such as making sure paint was on hand to mark addresses and to identify houses that have been checked so efforts aren't repeated.

By the numbers

• Residents killed (three in Pinellas Park, one in Largo). -- 4
• Distance the tornado traveled in Pinellas Park. -- 2.6 miles
• Width of the tornado's path. -- 0.25 miles
• The number of residential and commercial properties destroyed and the dollar value in property damage. Among the hardest-hit areas were the Autumn Run and Beacon Run subdivisions (a combined 169 homes destroyed) and the Park Royale Mobile Home Park (58 homes destroyed). -- 268 and $22,868,000
• Estimated wind speed in miles per hour. -- 200-plus
• Approximate number of people initially without power. -- 30,000
• Approximate number of people without power after 48 hours. All properties without power were severely damaged or destroyed. -- 500
• People arrested for suspicious activity. -- 6
• Fire/rescue responses. -- 300
• Emergency medical services responses. -- 265
• People treated for injuries. -- 130
• People admitted to the hospital. -- 8
• Time from the first report of a tornado hitting the Pinellas Park area at 54th Avenue and 75th Street N to the last tornado sighting at 10611 66th St. N. -- 31 minutes

-- Sources: city of Pinellas Park; National Disaster Survey Report, Tampa Bay Area Tornadoes, National Weather Service

The storm, minute by minute

The National Weather Service published the Natural Disaster Survey Report, Tampa Bay Area Tornadoes, Oct. 3, 1992. Here is a day-by-day account beginning with the first report of a tornado.

SATURDAY, OCT. 3

10:33 a.m.

First tornado reported in the Largo area

11:25 a.m.

First tornado reported in the Pinellas Park area at 54th Avenue and 75th Street N

11:28 a.m.

Tornado seen at 5280 88th Ter. N and intersection of 102nd Avenue and 66th Street N

11:30 a.m.

Tornado reported at 7008 67th St. N

11:33 a.m.

Tornado reported at 9611 68th Way N and intersection of Cedarbrook and Oak Haven drives

11:34 a.m.

Tornado spotted at Ulmerton Road and U.S. 19

11:35 a.m.

Tornadoes reported in Largo area and 12501 U.S. 19 N in Pinellas Park

11:41 a.m.

Tornadoes seen at 2760 Naval Drive

11:48 a.m.

Tornado seen at 6305 118th Ave. N

11:56 a.m.

Final Pinellas Park tornado sighting at 10611 66th St. N

12:14 p.m.

Last tornado report received from Treasure Island

12:56 p.m.

First fatality reported from Largo

1 p.m.

County opens emergency operations center

1:47 p.m.

Two deaths reported in Pinellas Park

3 p.m.

Nina Harris Exceptional Education Center opened as shelter

10 p.m.

County closes emergency operations center

SUNDAY, OCT. 4

8 a.m.

Local damage assessment begins

9 a.m.

Federal officials tour damaged areas

10:30 a.m.

Local state of emergency declared

2 p.m.

Governor tours damaged areas

MONDAY, OCT. 5

10 p.m.

Final body found in Pinellas Park after canine search

TUESDAY, OCT. 6

9:58 a.m.

County officially declares state of local emergency

11 a.m.

Joint damage assessment completed

Noon

Red Cross opens centers

2:45 p.m.

Governor endorses declaration of local emergency

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7

1 p.m.

Governor requests federal assistance

6 p.m.

President approves federal funds for public assistance

THURSDAY, OCT. 8

6 p.m.

President declares county a disaster area

FRIDAY, OCT. 9

Noon

Pinellas Park opens information help center

TUESDAY, OCT. 16

6 p.m.

Red Cross closes service centers

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