Tornado Warnings

Now that the boat was safely docked in our slip, we thought the excitement would be over for a little while. Mother Nature had other plans in mind.

We toasted our new friends, thanked them for their support throughout the day, sipped our passage beers and continued to pick their brains about every detail of the boat. The VHF radio was still on in the salon and we all happened to hear a call for help. The man on the other end said that there is a person in the water at the PGA bridge, less than five miles away. We all laughed and assumed that a drunk patron fell into the water at the Waterway Café restaurant.

Before long, numerous frantic calls came into the Coast Guard and we all listened closely for more details.

“Multiple boats overturned in the Intracoastal! People are in the water!”
“The boats ripped out the pilings and there’s debris everywhere!”
“There’s a power line in the water!”
“A tornado tore through and ripped the boats off the dock!”

As we listened to the radio, we watched the nearby police, Coast Guard and Sea Tow boats go flying north to assist. The weather continued to deteriorate all around us but luckily the worst of the damage stayed miles away.

The next morning, we learn that the EF-2 tornado picked up boats and cars in its path. We drove through the impacted area to find huge oak trees overturned, and the roof and siding torn off one of the nearby office buildings.

We headed to the boat to check on things and begin our cleaning/unpacking process. Once again, the weather started to deteriorate to our west. A low-pressure system was forecast to move east and bring with it some nasty weather. We tuned into the local news for a few minutes to see what we were up against. The front had 60 mph wind gusts, tons of lightning and we were under a tornado warning. Again.

In an abundance of caution, we pulled out a few extra fenders and dock lines to brace for the storm heading our way. The last thing we needed was a tornado to hit our beautiful new floating home on our first full day aboard. Having just witnessed all the damage from the tornado the night before, we nervously sat on the floor of the salon and helplessly watched the storm move through.

The storm passed violently but quickly. We survived our second tornado warning in the first 24 hours on the boat. Tom and I had a quick postmortem discussion on things we could do differently or better next time. While this was the first nasty storm we saw on the boat, it certainly won’t be the last.

On the bright side, the storm took care of one of our to-do list items for the day. Fresh water wash-down of the exterior, check.