A fierce tornado touched down in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, with 100 mph winds that overturned cars, snapped trees and damaged homes.
The National Weather Service in Miami says the tornado hit late Saturday afternoon near Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center and headed northeast toward the coast.
Footage filmed by a driver caught near the storm’s epicentre on a highway in Palm Beach shows a car being lifted into the air by 100mph winds.
The twister then spins it over more than 180 degrees before it crashes down while debris flies in all directions.
Another car was overturned shortly afterwards, with both drivers miraculously escaping with no more than minor injuries, according to local firefighters.
Images of the aftermath in a car park elsewhere in the seaside town show a car flipped onto its side with another thrown on top of it.
Meanwhile, trees were torn off at the trunk and thrown onto buildings, wrecking windows and roofs.
One man’s bungalow was so devastated that only a section of its front wall was left intact.
Despite the damage, no deaths and only one injury were reported by the time the storm subsided late on Saturday.
Residents described feeling an ‘intense pressure change’ as the storm moved through the town.
Fire chiefs said a man was hospitalised after becoming wedged between a concrete piling and a boat.
More than 7,000 homes lost power and a number of highways were blocked.
