'I'm super lucky': Amid vast destruction, many in Tallahassee are relieved just to have homes
There was a lot of scattered debris that could’ve battered the front of Col Stinson’s white GMC truck, but he thought it might have been a shingle from a nearby house.
“These shingles are kind of heavy,” Stinson said on Friday afternoon, nudging one with a foot. But, looking back at the shattered left headlight and split bumper, he added, “But I don't know if a shingle's going to do that.”
It was far more obvious what afflicted his boat, a 14-foot poling skiff. He didn't think there was any damage but wouldn’t be sure until the tree on top was cut away.
Overall, Stinson, a Florida State University graduate student, felt lucky. His close-to-campus Juniper Drive rental had trees leaning against it, but there were no obvious roof punctures. His truck wasn’t totaled.
“You walk around the corner, and someone’s car is just completely smashed by a tree,” Stinson said. "It sucks, but I think other people got it worse.”
Speak to many in Tallahassee, and they’d likely express something similar: what would typically be considered a massive inconvenience seemed small in comparison to the sweeping destruction caused by Friday morning’s storm. Especially in the neighborhoods close to FSU.
Take the bucket in Suzanne Stafford’s kitchen, catching the water that leaked from above. Fallen branches had put a few small holes in the roof.
But nothing had punctured the ceiling.
That wasn’t true for the vacant residence on the opposite side of her triplex. A tree limb jabbed through the living room, past the bathroom door, threatening an end-of-the-hall washer and dryer from feet away like a raised spear.
“I’m super lucky,” she said outside the North Lipona Road building, only a few minute walk from Stinson's.
When the storm struck
She didn’t feel lucky hours earlier, when the storm came bearing down.
“I knew that we had some bad weather coming our way,” Stafford said. “I just figured it was regular storms and then I figured the magnet would take care of everything else.”
She was referring to local lore that Florida State University's High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which was damaged in the storm, deflects bad weather.
“I got a text on my phone that said, ‘Tornadoes coming. Seek shelter.’ And I just looked at it and said, ‘Yeah, OK,’ and went back to sleep like most people did,” said Stafford, a retiree. “And then the walls started shaking.”
Tallahassee experienced wind gusts reported between 80 and 100 mph on Friday morning. One person died after a tree fell on her home.
For Stafford, the trees nearby either fell the opposite way or not at all. But she didn’t know that at the time, and she ended up huddled in her bathroom with her three dogs.
At the same time and a stone's throw away, Codi Morris was looking out a window of his duplex.
"You couldn’t see nothing," Morris said, later that day. In front of him was intersection full of emergency personnel, directing traffic around the twisted power poles, downed wires and uprooted trees. “It was literally about a foot distance you could see. You could hear trees cracking, things falling on the roof.”
Fallen timber covered his backyard. It smashed his back patio, tore down his fence and punctured the roof on the neighbor's side.
But, when he looks around him, he sees what could've been.
"I am very fortunate, very lucky it wasn't worse than it was," Morris said. "There's other houses down the road that have trees that have crashed right into their bedrooms and living rooms."
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA TODAY Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Douglas Soule can be reached at DSoule@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee residents near FSU campus take in widespread destruction
