As the state’s ongoing winter weather drama got even wilder, a tornado tore through a southern California community on Wednesday, ripping roofs off structures and tossing cars around.
Montebello, a community near Los Angeles, was swept by a swirling mass of wind — the kind typically seen in the Midwest — that broke windows and sent locals running for cover.
“I was driving… and I saw this tornado in front of me and had to reverse out,” one local business owner told broadcaster KTLA.
“The tornado took off the roof of the building. All the windows of the cars are shattered. Cars were destroyed, it was just a mess.”
In the city, which is only a few miles (kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles, video showed what looked to be roofing material circling above industrial buildings.
Following the incident, aerial photographs revealed broken and twisted pipes and installations, holes in a number of roofs, and vehicles that appeared to have been pushed out of parking spaces.
“I saw cars just swiveling through the streets and it was just the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” the business owner said.
The National Weather Service said it was investigating the event, which it called “a weak tornado,” and another in Carpinteria, near Santa Barbara.
“A weak, narrow tornado briefly touched down in the Sandpiper Village mobile home park in Carpinteria on the evening of Tuesday, March 21,” the NWS said.
“It damaged around 25 mobile home units and there was minor tree damage to the cemetery adjacent to the mobile home park.”
