Cleanup underway in East Naples after tornado

Reporter: Michelle Alvarez
Published: Updated:
A tornado damaged roofs and lanais in East Naples on Thursday, Aug. 24. (CREDIT: WINK News)

Cleanup efforts are underway in an East Naples community after a tornado touched down on Thursday.

It happened in Southwind Village, near the Naples Airport.

Neighbors are now trying to fix damaged roofs and lanais.

Video of the tornado shows how fast tornadoes can form and send debris flying into the air. A WINK News viewer sent the video to Chief Meteorologist Matt Devitt on Thursday afternoon.

Devitt then sent it to the National Weather Service.

A tornado blew through an East Naples neighborhood on Thursday, Aug. 24.

“I didn’t even think about a tornado,” said Deloris Sapp, who is visiting from Kentucky. “I thought it was just, you know, the wind blowing hard like it has done before.”

Sapp is in East Naples visiting her son. A tornado is the last thing she had expected to see.

“It just kept getting louder and faster,” she said. “I came running back through and told Austin to go to the hallway, and it sounded like everything was just coming off and breaking and everything. That was bad. It was quick.”

Darrell Sapp is grateful his son and everyone else is OK.

The lanai roof is pretty much ripped off and the roof is slightly lifted, and there is a hole in the roof.

“Right now, I have it tarped up. I do have a couple roofing companies coming by to take a look at it just to give me some estimates maybe,” Darrell said, “but I’m definitely concerned about the amount of rain that we’re gonna get. I may try to reinforce what I’ve done so far, just to keep as much of the rain out of it, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

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