Canoe crashes into Florida home after strong winds lift it through window

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. - Some Seminole County residents spent the day cleaning up, after a strong storm.

Jerry Kogut never expected strong winds to carry his canoe 80 feet to the other side of the yard and into a window that is now boarded up. 

"I was kind of shocked," he said. "I got home and noticed the canoe was poking through the window and the table on the porch was pulled all the way to the sliding glass door inside. It’s a big mess." 

He and his family are now cleaning up the mess. "Branches broken and a lot of trash thrown all over." He says he wasn’t home when it happened on Wednesday afternoon, but his dog ‘Teddy’ was. "I found the dog laying scared and hiding in the kitchen."

Kogut’s next-door neighbor also had storm damage. A table flipped over and a basketball hoop fell down, and some trees were also damaged.  Over in nearby Sanford, storm damage was also reported near Lake Monroe.

"The storm came across the lake, with heavy wind crashing through, and it picked up speed and as soon as it hit the building," said Reggie Ram, the assistant manager at St John’s River Steak and Seafood Restaurant.

Ram said a recent storm caused damage to a screened-in lanai. "It picked up the roof and flipped it over on top of the flat roof and sent it right across the parking lot." 

They got their customers to safety right away. "People that were sitting outside, we quickly relocated them on the inside."

Kogut's 12-year-old son, Michael, helped out back at the Winter Springs house.  "We are very happy that it didn’t completely destroy our house," he said.

He estimates damage to be less than $1,000.