The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

A TORNADO ripped through Deidre Miller’s South Ocean Boulevard home on Saturday, leaving behind a damaged roof, shattered glass and torn-down doors.

Meteorologists had warned the severe weather system over the weekend could produce tornadic activity, but Ms Miller was shocked to experience the weather event.

While awake around 3am, she went to look through the window as rain poured down.

As she got closer, the curtains began flying, a large gust of wind blew inside her house, and she heard a loud bang.

 “I crouched down on the side of my bed on the floor, and all we heard was the bang and the crashing and things falling inside the house and outside,” she said, adding that the tornado appeared to last about five minutes.

 She said she was in her bedroom at the time, her husband was in the front room, two sons were asleep, and one son was at work.

 When the wind from the tornado forced her bedroom door shut, her husband had to help her get out. She soon realised part of the roof had fallen inside one of her son’s rooms.

 “The door from my son’s room was on the floor in the middle of the corridor, and the sheetrock was on his bed,” she said. “The windows were wide open, which were originally closed. And the blinds were on the bed as well. From there, we went out to the front room area, and the front door was blown wide open and it was full of debris from outside.”

 She said roof damage caused rain to leak inside.

 The winds carried away her garbage cans but brought the bins of her neighbours to her backyard.

 The back window of her husband’s car was shattered, and now the car won’t start.

 “I was scared because I’d never experienced anything like that,” she said. 

 Mrs Miller’s family moved into their home in 2008. In 2019, during Hurricane Dorian, their roof suffered damage that cost over $11,000 to repair. 

 Although the house is insured, she said it would still be expensive to repair the roof again. She is grateful that her home was not destroyed and that no one was hurt. She said her family lost no personal belongings.

 “Roofing is expensive,” she said. “So I know that it’s going to be in excess of $11,000.”

 The night after the incident, her family removed the debris, got a tarp for the roof, and slept inside the house. 

 Mrs Miller said some parts of her house were unscathed, and some of her neighbours’ homes were unharmed.

 “I try to always look at the positive in issues,” she said. “I try never to dwell on the negative because negativity tends to get you nowhere. So in all things, there is always something positive that comes out of it.”