A potential tornado caused moments of anguish and terror for hundreds of Southern California residents when the phenomenon made landfall in the Montebello area.
A street vendor described the moment as an earthquake.
“If it sounded very ugly, it looked very ugly, well, very scared, because everything was moving, the trees and all the garbage,” said Lilia Flores, who added that the strong winds lasted at least 10 minutes.
The National Weather Service was investigating Wednesday afternoon whether the freak event itself was a small tornado.
Authorities have asked the public to avoid the Washington Boulevard area from Greenwood to Vail Avenue.
Another resident said he bathed at the time of the terrible winds.
“I looked out the window and saw how everything was flying. When I saw it (the tornado) a little behind, I left my house and saw a lot of discarded pieces of wood, pieces of buildings thrown away,” says a resident of Montebello.
A Montebello resident said he was taking a shower when the tornado touched down in Montebello.
A video shows how the roof of a business in Montebello was damaged by the small tornado.
And according to a Montebello town official, one person was injured and at least 17 buildings were damaged. Details of the victim’s injuries were not immediately available.
Students at one school also say they heard a lot of noise and felt the strong winds that this phenomenon brought.
“We heard a lot of noise, we heard a lot of air, and we opened the door and the tornado was there,” said a student from Montebello.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is investigating whether damage to a mobile home park was caused by a tornado on Tuesday in Carpinteria.
He said a teacher fell as she opened the door due to high winds.
On the other hand, in Carpintería, a town located in the county of Santa Barbara, NWS experts confirmed that the damage in an area of motorhomes was caused by a tornado on Tuesday.
The tornado was part of a day of showers across the region during the latest in a series of powerful storms fueled by atmospheric rivers — long plumes of moisture that power some of California’s most destructive storms.
The last time such a phenomenon was felt in Southern California was on March 1, 1983, when a tornado tore through neighborhoods south of downtown Los Angeles, destroying homes and businesses, overturning cars, throwing debris and ripping off part of the roof of the Los Angeles. Angeles Convention Center.
This tornado, which occurred 40 years ago, came in strong, reaching winds between 113 and 157 mph.