When weather alerts started sounding from Tim Bruse’s radio around 2 p.m. Friday, he knew something was up.
“It started going crazy,” Bruse said.
Bruce, who studied meteorology for about two years, checked the radar and noticed a “hook echo” on the screen. The hook-shaped image typically signals a possible tornado forming, he said.
He stepped outside his home just north of the Mid-Bay Bridge and watched fast-moving clouds head toward him.
As he kept an eye on the clouds, Bruse discussed an emergency plan with his girlfriend, her three children and two maids.
All of a sudden, he said the sky turned dark, the wind picked up and a funnel cloud began to form.
Bruse ran inside and everyone gathered into the center bathroom. They heard it pass overhead —Bruse described the sound as a “swarm of bees.”
Once it died down, he ran outside and shot some video as it moved away.
“It looked a lot meaner than it really was,” Bruse said.
The tornado developed as a waterspout in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin, said Cody Lindsey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Reports of roof tiles pulled off buildings came in from about one mile southwest of Seminole, Lindsey said. No other damage was reported to the Weather Service.
Courtney Smith of Fort Campbell, Ky., watched from her balcony at Amalfi Coast Resort in Miramar Beach as cars began pulling over and people started staring at the water.
She ran down and watched as the waterspouts formed.
Watch a YouTube video of the waterspouts. >>
View photos of the waterspouts and flooding from Friday. >>
Neither she nor the hundred other people watching were very scared, Smith said with a laugh.
“It was pretty,” she said.
Destin native Brandon Posey and his wife, Jacqueline, watched from Pompano Joe's as the waterspout moved to shore.
The couple was featured in The Destin Log in May after experiencing the tornado in Moore, Okla., where Brandon is stationed at Tinker Air Force Base.
"We tried to get away from stuff like this, but it seems like we bring it with us," Brandon said.
As Arlet Shelton sat in gridlocked traffic in Destin, she watched the clouds begin to rotate just west of the outlet stores. She moved past some trees and saw the tornado forming.
“You really didn’t have anywhere to go,” Shelton said. “You're just sitting there.”
When she finally made it through the area, she arrived at her son's daycare to find all the children in the hallway as a safety precaution.
For Kathy Turner of Niceville, Friday’s severe weather was a chance to see her third tornado — she’s seen two in Mobile, Ala.
When she heard there was a possible tornado moving in from Destin, she put her two sons in the car.
There were big dark clouds over Rocky Bayou, so they headed to the Rocky Bayou Bridge. The family passed over the bridge several times and watched the rotating funnel touch down before quickly dissipating.
It was her sons’ first time seeing a tornado.
“We’re all about it,” Turner said.