Tornado destroys home, damages others near Stickney Point Road

For the small Sarasota neighborhood near Stickney Point Road, hit by a tornado Sunday morning, damage and injury varied wildly across distances not much larger than an average residential lot. Next door to a homes that were seriously damaged or even devastated, some homes escaped unscathed. 

Most people agreed on one thing, it was over fast, and they were lucky no one was seriously hurt. 

The tornado tore across Siesta Key and parts of mainland Sarasota at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 17.

Drew Winchester, who spoke on behalf of Sarasota County and the Sarasota County Fire Department, said most of the damage occurred at two locations. The first was 6263 Midnight Pass Road where 40 to 60 condominium units sustained serious damage. At that time, fire crews and building department staff were still inspecting.

Winchester said 200 homes, countywide, had been inspected, but no damage estimate was available.

After hitting condominiums on Siesta Key, he said, the tornado took a straight path across the water to a small neighborhood of single family homes west of US-41 and north of Stickney Point Road.

In that neighborhood, homes on Baywinds Lane and Ridgewood Lane bore the brunt of the storm. Nancy Devito, who lives in a house at the end of Baywinds, had to be rescued, along with an unidentified man, after the second story of her house was decimated.

Tame Stockfis (Devito’s daughter) and her husband, Ian, were sleeping when they received a phone call from a friend about the tornado.

“I couldn’t get a hold of my mom and came right over here, and this is what I came up on,” Stockfis said. Baywinds Lane was littered with tree branches, siding and roofing from people’s homes, and the empty lot adjacent to Devito’s house was covered with what was once her second floor.

When the home collapsed, Stockfis said, Devito was trapped in an 18-inch gap in the debris for two hours until fire and rescue personnel removed her.

“One of the water pipes was pouring all over her,” Stockfis said. “She thought she was going to drown.”

She escaped battered and bruised, Stockfis said, but with no major injuries.

As Stockfis spoke, her daughter Niki Best, son Brandon Stockfis and volunteer Rufino Tegio were trying to salvage what they could – important papers, clothes and anything that couldn’t be replaced from what remained of the second floor. They were passing items from the wreckage, in containers made from broken furniture, to family members and volunteers below.

“(Devito) is … devastated by it all,” Stockfis said.

Winchester confirmed that, as of 11:30 a.m. no major injuries had been reported from the storm, though as many as 17,000 were still without power.

Rick Parkes, supervisor on scene for Florida Power & Light, said, for that small area comprising four or five streets around Baywinds, he hoped they could have power restored to most by Sunday night.

Douglas and Terry Damm live next door to Devito. They sustained some damage to their roof, but nothing like Devito's. They called 911 just after the storm when their sons, Jason and Joshua Damm, told them what had happened next door. Jason and Joshua were inside Devito’s home trying to assist when fire crews arrived.

“We’re obviously very lucky,” Terry said.

Many of the residents interviewed were in good spirits in spite of damage and debris scattered around the neighborhood.

On Hollywood Lane, a block northeast, Robert and Nancy Barbara had a mess to clean, but no injuries.

“We heard that it was coming off of Siesta Key pretty quickly … ” Nancy said. “The phone got cut off, the electric went off … we heard stuff falling and saw aluminum siding flying through the air.”

“We really consider ourselves lucky,” Robert said.

Terry Castleberry, who lives on Ridgewood Lane, north of Baywinds, said that the tornado had gone before she realized what was happening.

“It was unbelievable,” she said. “It was the scariest noise I’ve ever heard. It was this huge noise, you could see the wind swirling. It was maybe two or three minutes, and it was over. It was intense for that couple of minutes.”

Her home suffered major damage. She lost most of her pool cage, and a boat dock outside was affected. Inside her home, wind tore through the attic and sent insulation down into her bedroom and hallway.

Viva Reinhardt, who lives down Ridgewood Lane from Castleberry, said the tornado sounded “like a Mac truck.”

“It shook the house,” she said, “and then I saw all this glass and heard everything flying.”

Jett Thomas, sales manager for Alliance Restoration and Consulting, said roof damage alone on many of the roofs along that street could be as much as $20,000. Add to that damage to lanai’s pools and water damage inside, and the cost of repairs for many homeowners or insurance companies could be much more.

For many, that damage was the worst of what happened, and many considered themselves lucky to have been spared any injury or other loss.

Matthew Brannen, a Ridgewood resident, was at his girlfriend’s house, but came home at 7:30 a.m. to find water damage and a tree branch poking through the ceiling of his garage. There was also extensive damage in his backyard, including a boat davit that was ripped off its mount, that landed in his neighbor’s yard.

“I thought nothing was going on. People were texting me at 4 a.m. asking if I was okay. Thank God we weren’t here.”

He said, like a lot of people, there were things missing that he had no idea where to find. “My lawn furniture – God only knows where it is.”

Pauline Vileno, a realtor who lives on the Baywinds, described her house and the damage that resulted as a train wreck. Part of her bedroom ceiling was gone, and the inside of the house was a tableau of broken glass and furniture.

“The wind went right through and all of these glass doors are in the pool,” she said. “When the wind came up I said, ‘Oh don’t take down the ceiling,’ but it did.”

Still, she said, she felt lucky because there was no damage to the room she was sleeping in when the storm passed through.