At least four people were killed Wednesday after several tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Milton touched down at a senior community in St. Lucie County, Florida, the St. Lucie County Emergency Operations Center confirmed to FOX Weather.
St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson said search and rescue crews were mobilizing to find victims in Spanish Lakes Country Club in Fort Pierce, where significant tornados ripped through the area.
"They didn’t stand a chance," Pearson said. "Everything in (the tornado's) path is just devastated. Our deputies are out there even while the storm Milton is approaching with National Guardsmen, with search and rescue teams going through the rubble."
The sheriff reported that hundreds of homes were either damaged or destroyed in the county. The exact number of people trapped and in need of rescue is unknown.
"We’ve got about 300 members of law enforcement and volunteers out there sifting through these residences on the rescue mission to see if we can get anybody else out of there," Pearson told FOX Weather.
A building at the sheriff's office was among those that were damaged.
Video of Pearson taken outside the headquarters showed a 10,000 square foot building that was demolished by a tornado, with several police vehicles crushed below twisted metal. Pearson said no one was inside and no one was injured.
ROOF OF TROPICANA FIELD RIPPED OPEN BY HURRICANE MILTON
The tornados preceded Milton making landfall in the county, Erick Gill, the St. Lucie County spokesperson told Fox & Friends on Thursday.
Gill said that two tornadoes in the area were confirmed and there may have been as many as a dozen twisters total that struck St. Lucie. He said more than 900 calls were made to the county’s emergency operations center about tornado activity.
He said that the county had not given emergency evacuation orders since the area was expected to be hit by the edge of the hurricane and that tornadoes can emerge even in regular storms.
"All the projections coming in yesterday… we didn’t expect the tornado activity that we saw yesterday," Gill said. "I’ve worked for St. Lucie County for 21 years, I’ve been through multiple storms here and this has been the worst I’ve ever seen."
He urged residents to remain at home and let first responders do their job.
More than 3 million people in Florida were without power Thursday after Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key last night as a damaging Category 3 storm.
Milton, which is a Category 1 storm at the time of this report, has currently moved off Florida's east coast after bringing damaging winds, flooding rains and a developing storm surge threat to that area.
