A Marion County commissioner appeared upset Tuesday that she wasn’t alerted about a tornado that touched down Sunday and ripped up a building – despite the fact that it formed under radar and therefor didn’t trigger warnings.
Preston Bowlin, the county’s director of emergency management, told commissioners on Tuesday that an EF-0 tornado touched down Sunday around 7:22 p.m. in the 3500 block of W. Silver Springs Boulevard and when it got to the area near the 3100 block, it turned into an EF-1 tornado packing 110 mph winds and heavily damaged a building at Raney’s Truck Parts.
“It tracked for about a mile and a half off to S.W. 17th Avenue and 5th Street in the city limits, where it took up some signs and we found debris from Raney’s that far in as it tracked to the southwest,” Bowlin said.
On Monday, Bowlin added, personnel from the National Weather Service came to Marion County to investigate the storm and determined that the tornado had formed under their radar, which is why warnings via the county’s Alert Marion system didn’t go out. He said the meteorologists involved in the investigation were surprised with those findings.
Bowlin also said that both Marion County Administrator Mounir Bouyounes and Ocala City Manager Sandra Wilson were notified of the incident, which at the time was classified just as a “wind event.”
But that didn’t satisfy Commissioner Kathy Bryant, who said every commissioner also should receive notifications as they have in the past, even though Bowlin pointed out that at the time, the storm hadn’t been classified as a tornado.
“I know that you said you notified the county administrator, but this morning is the first time that I heard that we had a tornado touch down in the city,” Bryant said. “So, if you could put us back on that notification list as well, that’d be great.”
With hurricane season officially beginning June 1, the tornado prompted Marion County to put a post on its Facebook page encouraging residents to sign up for severe weather notifications at https://alertmarion.com. Residents also can contact the county’s emergency management office at (352) 369-8100 for more information.