The Tornado incident in 2007, was more serious than posted on a closed thread

[Bogie Shooter]

"A tornado came through the Villages and caused a lot of damage to one area - mostly several homes on a single street. …...so this was really a very isolated incident...."

This was posted on a closed thread, just to set the record straight it was not just several homes on a single street and not isolated.

It happened on....
Feb. 2, 2007 – Groundhog Day
The EF-3 tornado, packing winds between 155-160 miles per hour, cut a path across the then-south side of The Villages, leaving in its wake about 1,300 damaged or destroyed homes and other buildings, including the Mallory Hill Country Club.

The devastation was particularly bad in the area of Cane Gardens Country Club. And in several villages, including Poinciana, Sunset Pointe, Sabal Chase and Mallory Square, to name a few, many homes were either destroyed or suffered extensive damage.

It then plowed into Lady Lake and demolished the Lady Lake Church of God before killing eight people as it slammed into mobile home communities off Griffin View Drive.

The full story can be found here:
https://www.**************.com/2019/08/31/villages-101-deadly-2007-groundhog-day-tornado-cut-devastating-path-through-the-villages-and-lady-lake/ villages dash news dot com

[twoplanekid]

From a 2015 post
https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/villages-florida-general-discussion-73/helter-skelter-where-take-shelter-170732/


The Wind Science and Engineering Research Center Texas Tech University have produced the most complete study that I have found on the tornadoes that hit The Villages in 2007. I would hope that the Village builders have taken some of their recommendations to heart and modified some construction techniques. (They have)

https://www.depts.ttu.edu/nwi/Pubs/ReportsJournals/ReportsJournals/D2007-02-02-Tor-SAW-Florida.pdf

Last year, I installed a Hurricane rate window in our safe room which is our third, smallest bedroom in a Holly. I also installed this same rated window in the master bedroom in case we didn’t get the notice while asleep to relocate to the safe room because of dangerous weather. :icon_wink:

[dadspet]

Yes, IT WAS AWFUL!
But the good part was the action The Villages took immediate without any obvious requests for aid. They stopped all construction and immediately went into the affected areas to help. Crews were cleaning up debris, helping where ever they could, including putting tarps on houses, etc. It was amazing to witness how fast they went into high gear and how efficient they were. In less than a year you couldn't tell there was any devastation let alone the magnitude of it. Areas/cities around us had green tarps on their houses for years. I was very impressed and I'm not really one to be easily impressed. I was renting at the time and their actions clearly told me this was a good place to buy a house. (We bought one compeltely rebuilt after the tornado on a street close to completely distroyed,but you would never know how bad it was )
Of course, everyone hopes The Villages, or anyone else, doesn't have to take such action again.

:bigbow:

[vintageogauge]

I posted these photos on another topic. Taken on Golden Ridge, we were renting the house with the van in front, the stucco home with most of the roof gone was 3 houses down, the one with the rolled over car was 4 houses down across the street and the patio villas that were pretty much destroyed were behind the wall across the street. It still amazes me that there were minimal injuries within TV and no deaths from this. The funnel cloud photo was taken in The Village of Caroline but not by me.

[EdFNJ]

That funnel cloud photo is a work of photographic art. Amazing timing and composition and luck.

[vintageogauge]

That funnel cloud photo is a work of photographic art. Amazing timing and composition and luck.

To the right of the lightning you can see the red lights on the cell tower that is over behind the little cemetery in Caroline. TV would not allow anyone down our street that day so if we left we could not come back, the next day they had what appeared to be landscape labor lined up going down the street and everything was cleaned up off the street and lawns in one day, amazing work.

[justjim]

We lived in a neighborhood villa in the village of Caroline when the tornado tore thru Caroline and the Mallory Hill area of The Villages. Just two short blocks from our villa several homes were completely destroyed. It seemed just short of a miracle to me that no fatalities occurred in the damaged homes that I view that morning of February 2, 2007. I actually heard the tornado and got up about 3:15 am to take a look around the inside of our villa. Seeing just wind and rain outside, I went back to bed and awaken later to the sound of low flying helicopter flying just above our roof line. Within minutes I found out by television that a damaging tornado had hit The Villages, Florida.

The Village Developer pulled all of his contractors off building new homes to salvage what homes could be saved by putting tarps on roofs and stabilizing the houses that could later be repaired and moved back into. Neighbors helped neighbors and the whole community pulled together. It was amazing to me that a year later you couldn’t tell (unless you lived here) that The Villages was ever hit by this devastating tornado. Priority was given to rebuild (I heard over 100 homes) that had to be demolished and built back by the Villages Developer and his contractors. Unfortunately, there were fatalities in Lady Lake and other areas of Central Florida but not in The Villages. As I look back, perhaps this is a statement about the quality of our homes and how well they are constructed here in The Villages.

[Madelaine Amee]

We had no idea that there had been a hurricane. My husband left to play golf outside TV. They had breakfast and the hurricane was on TV. Then they drove through an area with various pieces of furniture stuck up in the trees.

Our friends were in bed and their windows blew out and covered the bedroom with glass.

It was very frightening for anyone who went through it.