The residents of Spanish Lakes gathered Oct. 9 to mourn fallen neighbors a year after a devastating tornado swept through Lakewood Park in northern St. Lucie.
At least 150 residents of the mobile home community near the Indian River County line witnessed the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to six fellow retirees. They all died when a historic tornado struck the community hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in Tampa Oct. 9, 2024.
The six victims enshrined are Alejandro Alonso, 66; Debbie Kennedy, 66; Mary Viramontez, 70; William Cutlip, 82; Sandra MacDonald, 84; and Roger Ammon, 85. They lived along the western perimeter of the community at La Villa Way and La Villa Court where the tornado destroyed 139 mobile homes, the plaque said.
Nearly an hour transpired as residents and family members came together in a private ceremony at 10 a.m. in the community clubhouse.
Speakers that morning included Det. Sgt. Sean Masters of the county Sheriff’s Office; Eric Wynne of the Wynne Building Corporation, which owns the community; and recreation department co-director Judy O’Donnell, who organized the event.
Masters “said it was an honor to serve and to work with amazing people who live here,” said community HOA president Robert Heslop in an Oct. 16 email. Masters and sheriff’s deputies supervised evacuation and security efforts in the direct aftermath of the tornado.
William “Bill” Maginn, a Spanish Lakes resident since 2017, gave a keynote address in front of his neighbors that morning. He illustrated the resilience of his community by talking about “kintsugi,” a Japanese concept of repairing shattered pottery with lacquer and precious metals, he said in a post-ceremony interview.
“Because of the storm, there have been building codes and other things that have changed,” Maginn, 69, added. “I think the structure is more fortified than before.”
The twister that claimed six lives and 139 mobile homes was the second and strongest of two tornadoes that impacted Lakewood Park between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Oct. 9, 2024, according to the National Weather Service. Altogether, six traveled through St. Lucie and 46 throughout the state.
Maginn said that he and his neighbors watched forecasts of Milton as it reached peak strength over the Gulf Coast a week before it impacted Florida. “I think it was a couple of days prior that they said there was a very good chance it was going to come across the state.
“We were preparing for that,” Maginn added. “I helped friends, neighbors, residents put up shutters and that kind of thing.
“That’s quite unusual; no one ever expected that, especially that far in advance of the hurricane,” said Maginn, who described how the tornado slung household debris as he rushed to shelter in his bathroom. “The actual hurricane, when it came through here, didn’t do much compared to the tornado.”
Maginn, who received minimal damage to his home, joined volunteer efforts “every day, for months” with fellow congregants of the Vero Beach Christ Fellowship Church branch, he said. “About 100 yards behind us was total devastation,” he added of his home’s vicinity to the wreckage along La Villa Way and La Villa Court.
The day of the commemoration began the same as last year, with dour gray skies looming over Spanish Lakes. This time, the rain arose from the Caribbean courtesy of Tropical Storm Jerry and what would become a Nor’easter.
Thomas Marshall and Eriko Kitazato are two survivors who also lived along La Villa Way in the path of the tornado. Neither attended the ceremony.
“I have no idea who they are,” Marshall, who turned 83 Sunday, said when asked of the six lives lost.
They met in London. Marshall built homes after instructing U.S. Air Force pilots abroad; Kitazato worked under famed hairdresser Vidal Sassoon at his Soho salon.
They married and moved to Spanish Lakes, where Marshall’s parents lived, shortly before 2000. “My father got a house for us, which was right on the big lake; gorgeous place,” he said, referring to his former home on La Villa Way.
When Milton set upon Florida, Kitazato received a phone call imploring them to leave from Jurgen Schwanitz, a Vero Beach tech entrepreneur for whom Marshall serviced computers. “We were all concerned about the storm,” Schwanitz recalled in an Oct. 14 phone interview. “I told her right away, ‘whatever you do, don’t stay there. Get out of the house. You can’t be in a trailer.’”
The couple, however, had no time to shelter anywhere else. “At the same time, I heard the ‘train’ go by,” Kitazato said of the call as the tornado produced sweeping, high-pitched winds. She never faced tornadoes before, having been more familiar with earthquakes as the dominant natural disaster in her native Japan.
By 5:30 p.m., their longtime home lost its roof. The same rain inundating Lakewood Park fell on both of them. “It was getting so dark that I didn’t want to get out,” Kitazato said.
The Sheriff’s Office first received emergency calls from Spanish Lakes around 4:47 p.m., public information officer Lt. Andrew Bolonka wrote in an Oct. 14 email. Deputies conducted search and rescue operations in the area after the tornado ripped through the rural county and Lakewood Park between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
The Florida National Guard transported evacuees including Marshall and Kitazato to Fort Pierce Westwood Academy some 8 miles south of Spanish Lakes that evening.
Westwood, the closest shelter to Spanish Lakes, housed 245 of the 420 residents (58.3 percent) evacuated throughout the county between Oct. 8-10, 2024, according to St. Lucie spokesperson Erick Gill in an Oct. 16 email.
Other shelters included Treasure Coast High School (86 evacuees; 20.5 percent), Fort Pierce Central High School (36; 8.57 percent) and the Havert L. Fenn Center (53; 12.6 percent).
Each shelter received “essential supplies” along with first aid, mental health resources and food services for evacuees, Gill added.
The couple’s story, however, suggested otherwise.“I had to sleep on the floor, a concrete floor,” Kitazato claimed of her stay at Westwood. “No blankets or anything; freezing,” Marshall added.
Over a week passed before Kitazato purchased their new home as a birthday present for Marshall the following Oct. 18. The couple also wrangled approximately $4,300 in aid from the Federal Emergency Management Administration, they said. “It’ll take it,” Marshall said of how his new home could withstand storm force weather.