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DELAND -- Maria Campuzano could hear the thunder and the bolts of lighting as she moved quickly to close the windows in her living room in hopes of keeping the suddenly driving rain inside just after 5 tonight. Instead, a huge oak tree smashed down on top, splitting the house virtually in half and knocking her briefly unconscious.
Campuzano's children, Abiline, 12, and little brother, Angel, 9, cried out for help and a neighbor called 9-1-1. The mom regained consciousness en route to Florida Hospital-DeLand where she was being kept overnight, her husband, Carlos, said from the front yard, with the house surrounded by yellow emergency tape by the fire department.
Photos by Henry Frederick / Carlos Campuzano points to the branches that struck his wife as she tried frantically to close the front windows with the intention of keeping out the rain, never-mind a huge oak."It's scary, but she's alive -- everybody's alive," the relieved husband said, explaining he was on his way home from school when he got the call from his kids that their mother was in the hospital. Asked if he could even re-enter the house in the 100 block of East Kentucky, Campuzano, shook his head side to side, adding sullenly, "the living room, the dining room, right on top, cut in two."
Though no tornadoes were officially reported to have touched down during the sudden burst of thunder, lightning and blinding rain, trees were felled and roads filled with debris throughout Volusia County, with more than half a dozen reports of trees knocked to the ground or on vehicles, knocking out power for an hour or more to more than 25,000 utility customers.
The Campuzanos' situation was, by far, the worst.
"She was trying to close the window," daughter Abiline Campuzano explained to VolusiaNews.net in an exclusive interview in front of the family's home as a passing firetrucks with its loud siren on the next block drew her immediate attention.
She girl said she was scared, while kid brother, Angel, said said he was "sort off," before moving his head up and down, admitting he was indeed scared.
A neighbor down the street was drawn to the scene as were a dozen or so other people by the huge oak tree that was ripped from the bottom like a wet dish rag. He tried to make light of the situation by cracking a joke: "I wish that tree had fallen on my house and I would have gotten something of value from the insurance.
Photos by Henry Frederick / This tree near Woodland Boulevard and Plymouth in DeLand -- less than a mile south from the tree that crushed a home -- fell away from the home next to it. The SUV in the photo above, collided with another vehicle on westbound Interstate 95, near Daytona Beachcoming, in the blinding rain, the Florida Highway Patrol said, Neither driver was seriously hurt.The Campuzanos were immediately offered help by close friends ad the shaken father said he and the children were on their way to the hospital to visit his wife and would be staying with friends for the time being.
Wind damage from the storm was also reported in Orange, Seminole and Flagler counties, and Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said an "apparent tornado" caused a tractor-trailer to overturn on Interstate 95 in Brevard County, "tearing down light poles, signs, knocking down large trees." Montes added the truck driver said he "saw the tornado coming, but it happened so fast he couldn't avoid it."
More bad weather is expected Thursday with storms moving up from the Gulf of Mexico and coming across the Interstate 4 corridor and over Volusia County with wind gusts possibly as high as the 46 gusting winds recorded at Daytona International Speedway during the 5 p.m. storm. Several warning advisories were posted by the National Weather Service in Melbourne in front of tonight's storm with additional severe thunderstorm warnings posted overnight tonight.
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