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Twisting winds tear at mobile homes

Storms severely damage 18 to 20 homes in the Largo and Clearwater areas. The funnel clouds leave thousands without power.

By WILL VAN SANT, JACOB H. FRIES and AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published July 21, 2005

[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]

Jack McCabe, senior building inspector with the city of Largo, surveys damage to Barbara and Jerry Kuppke's mobile home Wednesday at the Honeyvine Mobile Home Park.

	[Times photo: Kinfay Moroti]
	Overcome with emotion, Sherry Lacy stands outside her home along Seminole Boulevard after high winds knocked down a nearby sign. "I was so scared," she said.
	[Times photo: Ted McLaren]
	Mattie Akey makes a phone call after a tornado destroyed part of her mobile home at Palm Hill Country Club mobile home park. Largo police Chief Lester Aradi said the winds did their worst damage in the Palm Hill park.

LARGO - Standing outside the Allied Tires shop, Horace Grace watched the darkened sky above his head spin for five minutes Wednesday evening. He pointed to the growing clouds and suggested to co-workers they close up.

"I said, that's a funnel cloud," Grace recalled. "And they said, "It's time to pray.' But I told them, "No, it's time to run!"'

Then the sky erupted in a deafening boom, and pieces of tin swirled above the tire shop, behind the Home Depot at Seminole Boulevard and Ulmerton Road, Grace said.

Grace and others saw the twisting winds continue north into the Town & Country mobile home park before crossing Seminole and slamming the Palm Hill Country Club mobile home park.

The National Weather Service received reports of two separate funnel clouds, one near Largo at 6:22 p.m. and one in Clearwater at 6:27 p.m., said meteorologist Anthony Reynes.

Officials said there were no reports of death or injury.

Investigators will not know whether the funnel clouds actually touched down until they complete a comprehensive survey of the damage and compare it to radar data, Reynes said.

"At this point, we don't think they touched down," he said. "Right now, it looks like the damage was caused by strong winds from a severe thunderstorm."

Largo police Chief Lester Aradi said the winds did their worst damage in the Palm Hill park on Seminole Boulevard, just south of 16th Avenue.

Between 50 and 60 homes were damaged, 18 to 20 of them severely, Aradi said. The hardest hit were too dangerous for residents to remain in, so Aradi said he was trying find residents shelter for the night.

The storm left between 17,000 and 21,000 Progress Energy customers in Clearwater, Largo and north Pinellas County without power, said Progress Energy spokeswoman Karen Breakell. The company expected to have their power restored by late Wednesday or early this morning, she said.

The storm wrapped metal pieces around some of the power lines 50 feet high and knocked over several power poles, Breakell said.

"It was a pretty powerful hit," she said. "Those poles are hard to break."

Roofs, awnings, insulation and even a water heater were strewn about in Palm Hill. Entire rooms were left exposed.

Nina Venkus, 85, had gotten up to shut her windows as the wind began to scream. Venkus said she heard a "poof" sound and her home was suddenly full of light. The reason was quickly clear.

"I looked out and my porch was gone," she said. "It happened so fast."

The homes around hers were not damaged.

A few blocks away, the winds were not so kind. Homes were left in battered clusters.

In one, Barbara Thorpe cares for 81-year-old Eila Isaacson, who hails from Finland. Thorpe said she was at the kitchen window when the sky went black and debris began to fly by. She threw herself on Isaacson, who is in a wheelchair.

"I was petrified," said Thorpe, 58. "We prayed, Eila in Finnish and me in English."

A pile of twisted metal and other debris lay behind the house after the winds died. Thorpe said she could not tell whether it was the roof from a nearby home or Isaacson's carport.

"I really can't say," she said. "It's just unbelievable."

At Town & Country Mobile Home Park across Seminole Boulevard, Bob Conklin watched the radar images on television and figured the passing band of storms was nothing after worrying about Hurricanes Dennis and Emily.

Then the roof of his Florida room flew off.

Conklin, 74, ran from the living room to the kitchen window to make sure his eyes weren't mistaken. As he did, 100 roof tiles fell to the ground right where he had been.

His roof landed in a pile by some pine trees. His floor was inches under water.

He is uninsured.

"I never thought this would happen," said Conklin, sopping through his kitchen, putting pots out to catch some of the leaks.

Moments after the skies cleared, Sherry Lacy, 48, counted herself among the lucky. At the edge of her home stands a two-story Steak "N Shake billboard, which snapped in the wind.

"It was like dynamite had gone off - boom!" Lacy said.

She had backed against the far wall, away from the windows, and waited.

"I knew it was splitting the billboard, but I didn't know which way it would fall," she said.

It fell into her yard. Had it blown the other way, Lacy is certain the house would have been crushed.

After the storm had passed, hundreds of people walked along Seminole Boulevard to share stories and see the destruction.

Crews from the nearby Home Depot walked through the neighborhoods surveying the damage. They offered tarps to patch leaky roofs and promised Dumpsters to help wrangle the mess.

Times staff writer Graham Brink contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 21, 2005, 01:18:20]