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<\/a>FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014<\/p>\nA severe thunderstorm brought powerful winds, heavy rain and widespread disruption across the Gulf Coast on Thursday night. <\/p>\n
Thunder roared, rain blew sideways, and palm trees swayed as the storm swept through, snapping trees and knocking out power to businesses at Bell Tower in Fort Myers around 7:25 p.m.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden the power just went out and everyone was screaming. It was really dramatic,” said Alexa Zatarin.<\/p>\n
At Tap 42 Craft Kitchen & Bar, diners like Zatarin experienced a blackout during their meals and drinks, while outside, debris such as a tent flew and fell next to a car, and trash cans were blown away by the strong winds. <\/p>\n
“It was surprising. The trees were definitely going crazy,” said Morgan Hanley from Fort Myers. <\/p>\n
The storm’s intensity was evident as trees were snapped in half, a fence was blown down, and even a news car in the parking lot shook from the force of the wind. <\/p>\n
The power outage also left people at the Regal movie theater without a showtime. <\/p>\n
The Lee County Sheriff’s Office said a person has been detained outside the Regal at Bell Tower in Villas in connection with a robbery<\/a> just moments after the power outage. <\/p>\n “It was like kind of scary. And we couldn’t, we couldn’t get out,” Zatarin said. <\/p>\n In San Carlos Park, video captured the strong winds taking down a flag pole.<\/p>\n In Bonita Springs, LCSO said a tree fell down and blocked the road at East Terry Street and Villanova Court. <\/p>\n Brush fires were also sparked by the storm. Cape Coral Fire Department Battalion Chief Nicholas Bonnici tells Gulf Coast News that a lightning strike “most likely” started a one-acre fire near Southeast 24th Avenue and Southeast 12th Street in Cape Coral.<\/a> The Florida Forest Service says it is 95% contained as of 11 p.m.<\/p>\n Crews say a small brush fire was also ignited by a lightning strike behind the Chico’s Headquarters parking lot near Plantation Rd and Idlewild St in Fort Myers. <\/p>\n By Thursday night, power had been restored at Bell Tower, but the storm disrupted evening plans for many.<\/p>\n “Stay prepared. Make sure you have your umbrella. I left mine in the car,” Hanley said. <\/p>\n As lightning strikes are more frequent during the summer across the Gulf Coast, the National Weather Service reminds people of this message: “When Thunder Roars, Go Indoors!”<\/p>\n DOWNLOAD\u202fthe free\u202fGulf Coast News app<\/a>\u202ffor your latest news and alerts on breaking news, weather, sports, entertainment, and more on your phone or tablet. And check out the Very Local Gulf Coast app<\/a> to stream news, entertainment and original programming on your TV.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Severe thunderstorm causes power outages and damage around Bell Tower in Fort Myers FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,4329,9662,17346,554,37327,1272,123480,123479,121031,88176,221],"class_list":["post-336670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-gulf-coast-news","tag-lightning","tag-power-outage","tag-science","tag-storm-damage","tag-storms","tag-streams","tag-us-privacy-notice-term","tag-use-nextfre","tag-wbbh","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}