VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. --
Crews were out early Saturday morning to begin assessing the damage done in Port Orange after a tornado ripped into a neighborhood.
On Saturday the National Weather Service confirmed that it was an EF0 tornado that tore into the community. An EF0 tornado has winds ranging from 65 to 85 miles per hour.
Whether it's with heavy machinery or just whatever neighbors can carry people are starting to pick up the pieces from a tornado that ripped through a Port Orange neighborhood.
Chet Miller and his wife rode out the twister in the bathroom of their mobile home in the Laurelwood Estates Friday night.
"Just stuff flying everywhere, it was terrible. I don't want to experience anything like that again," Chet Miller told Eyewitness News.
The tornado damaged more than 150 homes before it was all over. At least 15 are so bad, residents can't go back.
"The water's just coming in, floor's completely shot now," one resident said, as he looked inside a neighbor's home.
The home's roof had been peeled back. A friend of the owners, he told us that they're out of state and still haven't seen it for themselves.
Meanwhile, assessment teams were evaluating damage.
Firefighters helped to get blue tarps where they were needed in an attempt to get the homes covered before more rain moves in.
The chief says it could've been worse.
"The roofs came off these buildings, but the buildings stayed intact. So, the people ran to their bathrooms and even in a mobile home, they were safe," said Tom Weber, Port Orange Fire Chief.
The Volusia County property appraiser is was on site to help figure out the dollar amount of all of the damage. The red cross was in the neighborhood making sure everyone had water, food and whatever help they need to clean up.
The tornado was captured on camera as it ripped through Volusia County leaving 150 homes damaged.
The worst damage was spread over three Volusia County neighborhoods, Lighthouse Pointe, Laurelwood Estates Estates and Brandy Hills.
According to Port Orange fire officials, between Lighthouse Pointe and Laurelwood Estates, eight homes were destroyed, seven homes were left unlivable, 22 sustained moderate damage and 122 sustained minor damage.
"We have significant damage in all those neighborhoods and that confirms to us that we did have a tornado touch down," Port Orange Fire Chief Tom Webber said, adding that there was only one minor injury reported.
"It came down, straight on down, the next road over. But thank God we were spared from it," a Port Orange resident told Eyewitness News.
There is a clear line of damage right through the center of the Laurelwood Estates neighborhood. Everything appears to have been blown south by a storm that originated north of the area near Ormond Beach, where eyewitnesses caught two twisting waterspouts on video.
It was an ominous beginning to what would turn into a dangerous storm; a thin spiral dropped from the clouds over the Atlantic Ocean, just off shore from Ormond By The Sea.
Jacob Komins was outside shooting video of his friends skateboarding when he spotted the waterspout and locked in on it.
"Just big. Came out of nowhere really. Straight down. You could see it almost touch the buildings right over there," Komins said.
The first twister spun for less than a minute and then crept back into the clouds, but it wasn't over. As the storm grew and moved south, a second, larger funnel cloud dropped down again. This time it was wider and stronger.
The group of friends, probably less than a quarter mile from the storm, said it was windy in the area, but there was no rain and no hail. They watched it move south and the same system generated reports of funnel clouds and tornados in Daytona Beach, South Daytona and Port Orange.
"It was pretty sunny and then all of a sudden the clouds just started getting dark and everything. It just popped up," eyewitness Michael Johnson said.
The Red Cross was on the scene Friday night assessing residents' needs, but the Port Orange fire chief said no one was requesting shelter and, instead, were staying with friends and family.
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