‘She saved our lives’: How a panicked driver spared a family from deadly Florida tornado spawned by Milton

CNN
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As airborne debris was being sucked into a tornado forming before Michelle Westfield’s eyes, it became clear there would be no escape if she drove her car forward on a road in St. Lucie County, Florida, last Wednesday. It would be a death sentence.

She slammed on the brakes, put her car in reverse and bolted backward as far as she could go – the entire time screaming and pounding on the horn on Winter Garden Parkway, a residential road in Lakewood Park.

At that moment, a couple outside taking videos of water pooling on the road heard Westfield’s screams.

After hearing Westfield’s warning, Clarke ran inside and grabbed their family to shelter in a hallway of the house. As soon as her husband shut the door, their entire house shook with the force of the tornado, she said.

“Everything felt like slow motion,” she said.

The dramatic story comes about a week after Hurricane Milton made landfall on the west coast of Florida and brought a flurry of tornadoes to the state’s east coast. The tornado in the Spanish Lakes community of St. Lucie County killed at least six people.

Westfield had been driving to her home in the Spanish Lakes community when she encountered a tornado that would end up ripping through homes on the road, where she had to reverse her car.

The carport and shed roof of her house was damaged, but the rest of her house were left intact. She said she’s just grateful to be alive.

After the incident, Clarke was so touched by Westfield’s warning that she posted about it on her Facebook in an attempt to find the “hero” who gave them the warning.

“She definitely saved our lives,” Clarke told CNN, adding that other neighbors heard her as well and got in their homes. “She deserves a hero award.”

“No matter how much she won’t accept it, you really did,” she told CNN affiliate WPEC, which was there when Clarke and Westfield met for the first time.

“I keep telling people I did not do anything heroic. I panicked, but my panic alerted people to go inside, and that’s a blessing,” Westfield told CNN.