Brian Kinney said it happened in a matter of seconds.

  • NWS: Tornado touched down in Winter Garden on Thursday night
  • Resident in The Cove subdivision reported seeing funnel cloud
  • Tornado downed trees, kicked up debris, damaged roofs

“The alarms went off on the phone, and 10, maybe 15 seconds, within 30 seconds, we were taking cover and it was here.”

When he first got the tornado warning Thursday night, he went outside to take a look and was surprised by what he saw.

“I walked on the front porch and looked in that direction, and that’s where I first saw the large funnel cloud and formation in kind of a pie shape or funnel shape,” Kinney said.

The hardest-hit area was a wooded area with snapped pine trees near Hamlin Groves Trail.

On Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service confirmed that an EF0 tornado touched down in the area for about 1.2 miles. It determined the tornado began between Avalon Road and Hamlin Groves Trail, just south of Porter Road. The tornado continued northeast for 1.2 miles, through part of an unoccupied planned neighborhood and an adjacent wooded area. At the north end of the track, the tornado affected a neighborhood of new homes, resulting in minor damage to several of them. More than 100 trees were damaged.

The tornado lifted near New Independence Parkway, east of Hamlin Groves Trail, the NWS said.

Roofs were damaged and debris tossed around in Kinney’s neighborhood, The Cove at Hamlin. But it was nothing some cleanup and construction can’t fix, which is a relief to the residents in the area.

"We’re prepared. We know our drill that we would do. Don’t really want to do it again, but we were prepared."