After a tornado, life gets back to (almost) normal for the wind-blown

The lights and the cable work again for all but a few. Trees have been picked up in Miami Springs.

The cleanup scontinues after a tornado tore through the industrial area west of the airport, then through Miami Springs and Hialeah before exhausting itself by the Hialeah Water Treatment plant. The twister’s ramble set off security alarms and caused cellphones to buzz with civic alerts between 3:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. Monday.

According to the National Weather Service, the tornado registered 107 mph top winds as it fluctuated between EF-0 and EF-1, a “weak” tornado on the NWS scale.

After Miami Springs residents negotiated tree-interrupted streets Monday, the city manager’s office told the Miami Herald all roads were open by Tuesday. FPL also was working on having all pwoer restored by the end of the day. Crews focused on clearing utility alleys for trash pickup trucks instead of the city’s swales.

In Hialeah, fewer than 20 people remained without power Tuesday afternoon.

The 41 people in 13 temporarily homeless families assisted by the Red Cross on Monday had found safe long term lodging, said Roberto Baltodano, Red Cross regional manager for communications and marketing. The families came from buildings in the 300 block of West 10th Street, near the Hialeah Water Treatment Plant.

“You know how it looks when you see the rolled up the top of a sardine can? That’s how the roofs of these buildings looked,” Baltodano said. “There were a lot of young families with children in those buildings.”

This story was originally published January 25, 2017 at 7:34 AM with the headline "After a tornado, life gets back to (almost) normal for the wind-blown."