![\"REP_CARD_CASSANDRA-GARCIA_STUART_FS.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776685748_860_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nPORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 Friday’s severe weather left a trail of impacts across the Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n
Video after video sent to the WPTV newsroom from Sebastian showed a large waterspout passing over the Indian River Lagoon Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
WATCH WPTV’S COVERAGE BELOW:<\/p>\n
Severe storms bring waterspouts, lightning and fires to Treasure Coast<\/p>\n
In Port St. Lucie, WPTV weather spotters captured video of heavy rain moving through the area. Merry Moore O’Rourke said her rain gauge caught over 3 inches.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden, it got black. The wind started just raging and the sky had lit up like I have not seen,” Moore O’Rourke said.<\/p>\n
Severe weather stretched all the way to Okeechobee County, where fire rescue crews airlifted a man to the hospital after he was struck by lightning.<\/p>\n
Port St. Lucie also saw significant lightning activity. The St. Lucie County Fire District said crews contained a brush fire near the 1900 block of Castinet Lane after reports that a lightning strike ignited vegetation in a nearby lot.<\/p>\n
At the 900 block of Bellevue Avenue, fire crews responded to an evening house fire. At the time of the storm, our radar picked up a significant amount of lightning in the area. However, the St. Lucie County Fire District said it cannot confirm the cause, as the fire marshal’s office still needs to investigate.<\/p>\n
Moore O’Rourke summed up what many across the region felt as the storms moved through.<\/p>\n
“I mean it was radical. I mean it was \u2014 it was a little scary,” Moore O’Rourke said.<\/p>\n
From waterspouts to lightning strikes and fires, Friday\u2019s severe weather reminds us all of nature’s unpredictable power.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WPTV<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 Friday’s severe weather left a trail of impacts across the Treasure Coast and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[141420,22185,23841,141418,171,173,172,141421,2736,179,22187,141419,139331],"class_list":["post-345090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-brush-fire-port-st-lucie","tag-floridas-treasure-coast","tag-indian-river-lagoon","tag-okeechobee-county-fire-rescue","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-severe-weather-florida","tag-st-lucie-county-fire-district","tag-treasure-coast","tag-treasure-coast-news","tag-treasure-coast-storms","tag-wptv-weather-spotters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345090","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=345090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}