Storm includes twist(er)

Leslie Bruce

It is still uncertain whether a tornado tore through the area early

Wednesday, but the storm’s devastation was quite visible.

The remaining portion of a cinderblock wall at the Mediterranean

Village apartments at 2400 Harbor Blvd. in Costa Mesa barely

continued to stand, propped up by a single tree Tuesday afternoon.

A 100-foot stretch of the wall collapsed onto a carport early

Tuesday morning, damaging at least 13 vehicles, Costa Mesa Police Lt.

Ron Smith said.

No one was hurt, but the high winds stirred residents.

“I went outside, because I thought the tree next to my house was

going to uproot,” Mediterranean Village resident Kevin Holland said.

Shari Hagel, a sales associate with Incident Management Parking and

Security, the company leading the repair of the apartment complex,

said a tornado ripped down the wall at about 1:30 a.m.

While property management and residents insist that yesterday’s

damage was the result of a tornado, the National Weather Service

could not confirm the storm actually produced a twister.

“We have heard reports of a tornado, but we have not been able to

confirm it,” said Brad Doyle of the San Diego National Weather

Service.

However, the storm produced severe enough conditions for the

online National Weather Service to warn of a “localized threat of

brief tornados” for Orange County.

Property damage from the thunderstorm was reported throughout the

Newport-Mesa community.

Gary Placentia, of the 1900 block of Wallace Avenue in Costa Mesa,

is not sure if it was a tornado that caused a tree to fall and damage

his motor home, but he said it sure felt like one.

“It was something that I never heard before,” Placentia said.

“It was like a loud wind, but it sounded more concentrated.”

Whether or not a tornado hit, the damage from yesterday morning’s

storm has certainly been felt throughout the community.

“I looked out my window, and the trees were literally banging

against it,” Costa Mesa resident Sharon Desser said.

She pointed to a neighbor’s parked car with a shattered windshield

and sunroof.

“That’s not even her car; it’s a rental car,” she said.

The storm produced 1.82 inches of rain in Newport Beach and Costa

Mesa, surpassing the December average of 1.59 inches for the area in

a matter of hours, according the National Weather Service.

It also caused traffic signal outages, authorities said, though

reports of more outages could not be confirmed.