Harbor Heights residents came face-to-face with tornado

The tornado touched down within minutes of storm alerts going off on phones in the Harbor Heights area.

"My dad said, 'no, no, no. We need to go,' so we ended up going into a closet," 18-year-old Haley Fox recalled.

Fox was getting ready to go to a college class when her dad, a Charlotte County deputy, grabbed her.

"The house did shake. I think it just happened so fast I couldn't process what was going on. You just heard the gust of wind and when you looked out the window, you couldn't see anything. It was literally gray," she said.

Their roof was ripped off. The exterior of their home was damaged.

Deputies worked, some in dress clothes, to help their law enforcement family.

Down the road, others realized how lucky they were.

"The wind just came up howling, very bad, and I told my husband, I said, 'you get on that side and close that window,' and I closed this window and we held the shutters because they were banging so bad. And we got both the windows closed, or we would have lost or head," said Linda Killian.

The tornado ripped through the neighborhood before 2 p.m. Nearly 30 homes were damaged.

Meanwhile, n Charlotte County off of State Road 776 and U.S 41, a Suntrust bank building was damaged.

"We got out of the way of the windows and got into the safe room," said Kathy Knee.

Pieces of the roof could be spotted in the parking lot. Everyone was okay, but shaken.

"You heard a lot of things rattling, the wind blowing very strongly. Didn't see anything except the trees looked like they were going to blow into the glass," said Knee.

The damage brings back bad memories for many who now question what they will do.

"We are too old to redo it again. We did it with Charley and we can't do it again," said Killian.