Hurricane Milton: She sought refuge in Wellington from Naples. A tornado then flipped her car
With Hurricane Milton raging from the Gulf of Mexico, Kathryn Tapper’s decision to flee her home in Naples and stay with friends in Wellington may have been called into doubt.
But she still believes that everything occurs for a reason, even surviving a tornado and then walking outside her home in the Meadow Wood area to see her 2012 black Hyundai Elantra on its nose resting against a garage, according to a recent article by Tom D’Angelo.
“I said, ‘OK, I’ve never seen the underside of my car before,'” she reported.
Tapper, originally from Jamaica and now a doctor, was unconcerned.
“I’m a very calm person and I know I’m supposed to be where I’m supposed to be,” she told me. “I knew I needed to be here for some reason. I’m not sure why.”
The National Weather Service verified that a tornado touched down in Wellington about 4 p.m. Wednesday, one of perhaps numerous tornadoes created by Milton and affecting Palm Beach County and other nearby counties. Officials are still determining the speed, severity, and duration of each tornado.
Tapper hid in a bathroom at the home on the corner of Fairdale Way and Meadow Wood Drive with residents Yolanda Nesbeth and Ricardo Johnson, their 6-month-old kid, and Nesbeth’s mother.
“I don’t think we closed the door before the tornado hit,” Nesbeth told me.
Johnson was the first to go outside.
“We heard him say, ‘Oh my God’. “Oh my God,” Nesbeth replied.
Aside from Tapper’s automobile on its nose, a piece of the garage roof was missing, and an air handler poked out of the hole. Nesbeth expects that repairs will take at least four months.
When Tapper saw the automobile, she remembered a feeling she experienced earlier in the day.
“I actually envisioned this car flipping over early in the day,” she told me. “Isn’t that strange? But I felt my car was going to flip on top of the Mercedes.
“I said, ‘OK, my car flipped over. “That means I need a new car.”
This article originally appeared on The Palm Beach Post