It’s a day Gerry Villegas will never forget. She was in her Oxnard mobile home when Thursday’s big storm hit. She thought it was being rocked by the wind. But, it turned out to be a tornado.
"The sky opened up, and there was just a torrential downpour," said Villegas. "You could hear the wind, it was just really loud, and when I looked to my right, I could see something fly by...debris...but it was the porch awning. It detached, and flew by."
The big storm which hit the Tri-Counties brought us heavy rain, wind, and as it turned out, a tornado. It caused damage in two adjacent mobile home parks in Oxnard. Windows were broken, roofs were damaged, and some metal carports destroyed by the twister, which hit at around 3:30 Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Crews spend much of the three day weekend removing debris, and making repairs to the more than 10 mobile homes which were damaged.
When the first Oxnard firefighters reached the scene, they discovered a mess in parts of the Country Club Mobile Estates Park, and the adjacent Ocean Aire Mobile Home Estates.
"We found that there was confirmed wires down in two to three feet of water. We had multipe residents that were trying to get out of their units," said Oxnard Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Reyes. "We advised them to stay inside, and shelter in place. Once we got that area cleared out, we realized there was significant damage to multiple mobile homes"
But, at first, it was uncertain whether the trailer parks had been hit by some extreme wind, or an actual tornado. National Weather Service meteorologists examined the damage at the scene, along with radar and other storm data, and determined it was in fact a tornado.
"There was a lot of heavier showers, not too much in the way of lightning, but it was convective. That's what we end up seeing when we have this type of convection, and enough rotation in the atmosphere...it can definitely lead to tornadoes," said Lisa Phillips, who is a National Weather Service Meteorologist and part of the field investigation team.
Phillips said it didn’t last long, traveled less than a mile, and was the lowest tornado intensity, but that was still enough to cause damage.
Villegas admits the thought it might be a tornado never occurred to her as it hit.
"I was thinking crazy wind, but crazy on a different level, because the coach was shaking, and shaking the entire length of the coach," said the mobile home park resident. "There was a different level of crazy wind. I would say it lasted for about five minutes."
Villegas admits she was surprised to find out it was a actually a tornado.
"I asked one of the weather guys if they had assessed the actual mile per hour, and they said 75 to 90 miles an hour...what the call a small tornado. I wouldn't want any more than that," Viellagas laughed.
