Watch a Florida woman film a devastating tornado as it slams into her car
Ideally, you want to be in a low-lying, secure location away from doors and windows during a tornado. Think storm shelter, basement, or safe room in such an emergency. However, sometimes things move too quickly, and you’re forced to buckle down while a violent tornado climbs over your car, like this terrified Florida woman did. And she captured the entire ordeal on her smartphone.
A video shows the shocking first-person experience of a Florida tornado slamming into a car
An EF-2 tornado will hit as much as 135 mph. That’s more than sufficient to cause significant damage to buildings and send debris flying like missiles looking for targets. As you might imagine, then, the cockpit of a car isn’t the best environment to ride out a fast-moving tornado. Still, it seems this Florida woman didn’t have much choice. Then again, she did film the life-threatening event.
According to Iowa State University, an EF-2 tornado can pick up a car, not just cause significant damage. Luckily, the Florida woman’s video doesn’t show the weather disaster lifting the car off the ground, rather battering it with vegetation and debris. The video shows large palm fronds and other objects slamming into the car while the woman quietly repeats, “Ay, Dios mío!”
More disturbingly, the video captures the sounds of the debris hitting the stationary car. It’s violent and irregular, like a young kid discovering a drum kit with little instruction. Fortunately, the praying woman was uninjured as she waited out the tornado in her car. At one point, the woman was disturbed by the onslaught of debris enough to lie flat across the front seats. Considering an EF-2 event could send an object through a car’s window, that was a prudent move.
The BBC reports that this particular Florida EF-2 reached 115 mph at its strongest, which classifies it as an EF-2, but not a particularly strong one. However, the event was destructive enough to leave around 500 residents without power and cause serious damage to nearby homes and structures.
Check out the video of the dangerous weather event below!
