Lacey Mitten and her children were getting ready to start the day, when she felt the shift in the land under her home in Palm Beach County early Thursday morning.
"My sister and I just looked at each other. It sounded like a freight train," she said.
She grabbed her two children, Sage 11, and Hannah, 8, and ran to the bathroom to hide in the tub. As they were running, the window of the bedroom blew out. Her brother-in-law and sister covered themselves with a mattress, and her mother jumped in the tub too.
"We just got into the bathtub and held on," Mitten said. "It was quick, but it seemed like lasted forever."
The National Weather Service in Miami said three probable tornadoes touched down in South Florida on Thursday. According to preliminary reports, one of them may have caused damage to Mitten's house and to her neighborhood, which is located in an area of Palm Beach County called the Acreage.
The weather service said the rain in South Florida, which is at 70 percent chance of rain for the next few days, is a from a rain band extending out from Tropical Storm Andrea. Storm conditions from Andrea were beginning to move onshore to Florida's west coast on Thursday.
Once Mitten got out of the bathtub, she found windows throughout her one-story home were broken, her back door was wide open and wall in the living room was leaning.
"If we would've waited a second longer, we would've been in the middle of it," she said.
A cargo container from Mitten's backyard ended up in her neighbor's yard.
Meanwhile, Lynn Davies, who lives across the street, had her dog and two cats get sucked out her home when the double front doors blew out. Her dog came back 15 minutes later, and the cats were still missing hours later.
Davies said she and her husband moved into their new home several weeks ago.
"We waited seven months to get into this house," she said.
She said she wasn't home at the time of the tornado, but her husband was.
"He said it sounded like a train coming through," she quoted him as saying.
The back bay window of her home was destroyed and the front doors unhinged and parts of a tree landed in her living room.
Both families said they have insurance and friends came over to help them clean up.
"You hear it happens to other people, but you don’t think it will ever happen to you. I definitely have some guardian angels looking out forme," Mitten said.
