Wayne and Nancy Stephens of Eustis, Florida

Survive Killer Tornado
 

February 4, 2007

 

Hi Bev,

 

We were jarred out of bed at 3 am with the hail and very loud rain and lighting that had no thunder, but was constant as a strobe light.  The wind noise was very loud. A pine came down and missed the house, but is in the back yard, It came from the next door property. 

 

The power was out until this morning, thankful it is back on. 

 

A 1500 foot steel radio tower 1/2 mile from the back of the house came down, unbelievable!  We drove a block toward it this afternoon and looked down the one lane dirt road and it was filled with vehicles and we could see cranes in the distance, guess they are removing the wreckage already.  Police all over the area where it crossed SR 44, the street our road come off of.  Trees down all over and wreckage and sheet metal all over the cow pastures.   it appears to have just skirted us, blew a lot of our loose stuff into the woods and plastered leaves on the front and back porches.  We found trees down on the block behind us to the east where the most damage was in this area, but not on our street.

 

The Villages are about 40-50 miles to the west.

 

A couple miles east of here 15 people died in homes on the dirt roads off SR 44.  We think it touched down right at the edge of us.  We talked to a lady in the Church west of us in Umatilla who had her TV on and she saw the image on the screen and knew it was coming for us. She said she prayed for us at that moment. God answered that prayer.  She later checked the area toward us and found it had lifted up and went over Umatilla and did not come down until it got to our neighborhood.

 

It was a scary morning and it is very sad about the ones killed.  They found a father and son dead hugging each other.  Total is about 21 with 5-6 at Lady Lake most from the mobile home park near the villages, lots of damage in the villages to a hundred homes or more.  Lots of damage in DeLand east of us with no deaths reported.

 

Thanks for checking on us.  Give our best to Vic, and come see us soon.