CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK)—A powerful storm tore through Cape Coral Sunday afternoon, leaving neighbors to clean up significant damage.
The Jurotich family’s surveillance camera captured the moment the storm destroyed their son’s play set in their backyard. WINK News reporter Bella Line spoke with neighbors who described what they heard.
Jenniffer Jurotich and her husband Eric were covering their barbecue when the weather suddenly turned violent. They never typically secure their outdoor items, but something made them act differently that day.
“All of a sudden the house started sounding like a whistle,” Jenniffer Jurotich said.
The couple rushed to bring their dog inside as the storm intensified. Their grills were blown across the yard during the chaos.
“The top of that barbecue came flying all the way over here,” Eric Jurotich said.
Jenniffer Jurotich says the storm’s intensity caught her completely off guard.
“It sounded like it was going to be just some rain, and it ended up blowing everything one side, and I’m like, that was the part that it shocked me,” she said.
Next door, Barbara Timko and her husband were gathering items to bring inside when they witnessed the storm’s fury firsthand. Their fence was blown out as a swirling motion moved through the area.
CREDIT: Barbara Timko
“Oh, it sounded like a freight train, and all of a sudden the, we saw like a swirling, and the fence just kind of like blew out,” Barbara Timko said.
“It was like 10 minutes of the loudest sound I’ve ever heard,” she said.
The WINK Weather Authority confirmed a landspout moved through Cape Coral during the storm. For residents who have weathered many summer storms, this one stood out.
“That was the strongest wind that we felt, not being a hurricane here, where I mean, again, we have summer storms that come through, and have pretty strong wind, but I haven’t seen it just move the entire yard over and flip everything,” Eric Jurotich said.
Neither neighbor suffered any structural home damage. The City of Cape Coral reported no damage to city infrastructure from Sunday’s storm, but they reported approximately 20 properties with fence or screen damage.