LIVE OAK — It sounded like hail.

Todd Lawrence was in his office at Farmer’s Cooperative a little after 10 a.m. Monday when he heard it.

In fact, Lawrence said he came out into the showroom at the farm supply and feed store intending to look at the hail coming down in the thunderstorm.

He witnessed far more.

“I could hear, it sounded like hail, so I was going to go out and see if I could see,” he said of the EF-0 tornado that hit the western side of Live Oak. “When I came out in the showroom, the front doors, the wind blew them wide open.

“I helped pull them back and about that time, we had a big tent for our garden center, the wind took it up and smashed it against the building.

“It was kind of interesting to sit there and watch.”

At her house on 2nd Street across U.S. Hwy. 90 and northwest of Farmer’s Coop, Melinda Bean also thought it was hailing.

“It got real rough,” she said. “But mainly, I thought it was just a hail storm. That’s what it sounded like, hitting the windows was pieces of hail. I never heard, like they say, the train.”

Instead of hail in her yard, though, she saw two large pecan trees uprooted.

“It literally ripped them up out of the dirt,” she said. “It got kind of scary here.

“We were lucky. It missed my vehicle by about two inches.”

Bean wasn’t alone in escaping with a close call.

The brunt of the storm’s damage occurred at Farmer’s Coop. The winds from the storm ripped off part of the roof from the store’s warehouse.

With the roof peeled back, Lawrence said some inventory got ruined by rainfall, but the store planned to reopen for business Tuesday morning. Power was restored Monday evening and a window that was busted out of the showroom was replaced in the afternoon.

Lawrence said the drop ceiling that collapsed in the showroom during the storm was taken out by employees Monday during the cleanup.

“We worked pretty much all day, basically spent the day cleaning up and trying to get ready to open up again,” he said. “Like with the warehouse, it’ll take several days or a week to get the roof back fixed, but we’ve covered things up best we can.

“We should be able to do most of our business and operate that way until we get everything fixed back.”

But Lawrence said with rain in the area, the store wasn’t overly busy Monday morning. It also had the employees mostly inside. Those that were in the warehouse as the storm hit soon vacated that building.

“I know the guys in the warehouse, when it really started coming through, all of a sudden they were up in the showroom with the rest of us,” he added. “It didn’t take them long to find where to go.”

No employees were hurt, which was all that Lawrence and Barry Long, the ag division manager at the coop, were concerned with.

“It could be a lot worse,” Lawrence said. “We’re very fortunate. All our employees are safe.

“We had a good bit of property damage, but all of that can be fixed.”

Long added: “The main thing is, safety. All that other stuff, we can replace. You just can’t replace good employees. That was the biggest thing for us.”

Sheriff Sam St. John said in addition to the tornado tearing “the heck out of the Farmer’s Coop,” it also caused damage at Wayne Frier’s trailer park just west of Farmer’s Coop. One tree landed on a mobile home, while a limb fell on the corner of another home in the trailer park.

The Suwannee County Emergency Operations Center received a call shortly before the storm hit from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville warning that radar had shown a possible tornado around the Newburn area, close to where the damage occurred, St. John said.

“They had some wind there for sure,” he said.

LIVE OAK — A thunderstorm that blew through the area Monday morning brought a tornado with it and inflicted damage just west of Live Oak.

Farmer’s Cooperative and a few houses at the Wayne Frier’s trailer park took the bulk of the damage.

“It tore the heck out of the Farmer’s Coop,” said Sheriff Sam St. John, who also is the county’s emergency management director.

St. John said employees at Farmer’s Coop moved out of the warehouse and into the store building at the business when they noticed the rain beginning to come in circles.

The storm then ripped part of the roof off the building, causing the interior roof to cave in on the store as well as busting out a window.

“They were trying to hold the doors closed,” St. John added. “The doors in the store were trying to pop open. And then once that roof popped off, that pressure went inside.

“They had some wind there for sure.”

At the nearby trailer park, St. John said a tree landed on one mobile home while another suffered damage when a large limb landed on one side of it.

The Suwannee County Emergency Operations Center received a call shortly before the storm hit from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville warning that radar had shown a possible tornado around the Newburn area, close to where the damage occurred.

St. John said the storm was likely an EF-0 or EF-1 tornado.

The Farmer’s Cooperative on the west side of town was heavily damaged Monday morning in a storm, believed to include a tornado.

“It tore the heck out of the Farmer’s Coop,” said Sheriff Sam St. John, who also is the county’s emergency management director.

St. John added that Wayne Frier’s trailer park also was hit by the storm, with trees down in the area.

St. John said while there was a lot of damage at Farmer’s Coop, it appeared that everybody was OK.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.