GROVELAND, Fla. – Pockets of Groveland still had hail on the ground Wednesday afternoon after a severe storm passed through on Tuesday.
Families near Broad Street and Beverly Drive say it looked like snow on the street and in their yards.
Mattie Williams and her husband Lacy said they couldn’t believe how much hail covered their neighborhood. As it continued to melt Wednesday, they said they still have a lot of leaves to clean up in their backyard.
“In April!” Williams said. “Ice. Everywhere, everywhere. Ice. Ice. Ice.”
Down the street, Jamie Avalos showed News 6 Reporter Catherine Silver what was left of the hail in her side yard. It had melted in smaller pieces, but Avalos says the largest stones were roughly the size of golf-balls.
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“It’s just like if you’re throwing rocks. It kind of sounded like that,” Avalos said. “It was banging against the windows, the cars. We were just worried it was going to break our windows and cars.”
The hail did shatter an awning on the side of Avalos’s home. Her and her brother rushed to bring their ducks and some kittens inside when the storm started.
As the neighborhood cleans up, most of Lake County’s efforts are out of plain sight. A spokesperson says they took 13 storm-related calls Tuesday evening, mostly for lightning strikes, downed power lines and trees. They are responding to calls as needed, but say the need so far is low.
Sarah Panko, who works for Groveland Public Safety, says the reports they have received are for minor damage.
“We had some localized flooding and that was due to the leaves coming down and kind of blocking the storm drains. So, obviously our crews are out there unblocking those,” Panko said.
Mike Whitaker says water flowed across his driveway, almost like a river. He’s thankful the storm rolled out as fast as it rolled in.
“Florida storms, you know, they say just wait 10 minutes,” Whitaker said.
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