Florida survivors discuss near-misses after Palm Coast tornado rips home open

Tornado destroys home, sends debris flying

Residents are lucky to be alive after the roof was ripped off their home in the middle of the night when a tornado ripped through their Palm Coast neighborhood.

PALM COAST, Fla. - People in one Palm Coast neighborhood say they’re lucky to be alive after a confirmed EF-2 tornado touched down there, early Thursday morning. The tornado tore the roof off the house that William Fallot shares with his parents.

"I heard the screen rip, the next thing I knew I heard a 'Kaboom!' and the whole house started shaking and the roof popped off all at once," Fallot said, "next thing I knew I was on the floor on top of my mom, and looking down at her. I'm like 'You okay?' and she goes 'I'm okay.'"

Fallot said that in another bedroom, his father had an even closer call. "He was actually sleeping in the bed where the roof came down, he heard us screaming and rolled over out of the bed, after he rolled out the bed the roof came down, smacked the bed, put a 2x4 through the bed, he got hit in the back with something, but he's okay."

Two of the 2x4 trusses from Fallot’s roof pierced through the roof of the house across the street, where Tanya Mitchell and her husband were sleeping at the time. "I'd say it was about ten till five, we heard a big boom, and I was like what is this stuff all over me?" Mitchell said, "My husband grabbed his phone, he flashed it, he was like 'What the...?' and there was a 2x4, right through the ceiling!"

The beam came within two feet of her. Another one came through the ceiling of her bathroom. Fortunately, neither she nor her husband were injured. "I definitely have some good angels watching over me," she said, "that's for sure, that's for sure."