Tuesday night storm damages southern Suwannee County

Published 9:38 am Thursday, February 9, 2017

McALPIN, Fla. — Within 10 minutes, it was all over.

Just before John and Mariea Woodman went to bed Tuesday night, Mariea checked the weather radar online and saw a red box coming straight for their home in McAlpin.

“I told John don’t go to sleep ’cause were about to get it,” Mariea said.

It started with just a little hail. Then everything went quiet before it sounded like a freight train came through, knocking down 10 trees and strewing everything in their lawn all across their property.

“Gourds, bird houses, trash cans, lawn furniture, everything was thrown away,” John said. “We’ve been cleaning it up all day.”

Sharon Hingson with the Suwannee County emergency management division said they received many calls after 9 p.m. on Tuesday related to extreme weather and damage, particularly in the south eastern part of the county.

“We know it was bad, but there is no confirmation of a tornado,” Hingson said.

She said a lack of confirmation doesn’t mean there wasn’t a tornado, but that they are not sure at this point. Emergency management is still responding to calls and tallying up the damage caused by the storm, she said.

Tornado or not, a 40-foot-tall tree fell right in front of Woodman’s home, and John said that if it had fallen toward the house, it would have been a completely different story.

“It would have fallen right on our living room,” John said. “We would have been in the hospital or worse, maybe.”

Another tree fell directly on their power line. Suwannee Valley Electric came out in the morning to cut their power and told the Woodmans they would be out later to fix it. For now, they are completely without power and water and plan on going to Mariea’s son’s house to shower.

“It was terrifying,” Mariea said. “It looks like a tornado came through here.”