MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Florida. — A woman in the rural Redland area of ​​southwest Miami-Dade woke up to a suspected tornado hitting her home early Wednesday morning as the outer rain bands of Hurricane Milton moved into South Florida.

Brenda Lee Newton, who lives on Southwest 344th Street west of Florida City, described the unexpected 4 a.m. wake-up call.

“I was sleeping in bed with my dogs, my husband had just left for work and then all of a sudden I hear debris hitting the window and I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s not the storm yet,'” Newton said.

The strong storm passed through overnight, downing trees and damaging several properties.

“This is my husband’s family’s property and they’ve been here for years and it’s just sad to see it like this,” Newton said.

Newton showed Local 10 News the damage.

“When I went to open the kitchen door I couldn’t because the tree had fallen and I thought, ‘Great,'” she said. “And then I try to walk out the front door and the same thing: all these trees were down.”

Seconds later the power went out. Newton received a tornado warning on her cell phone after the storm had already passed through.

The strong wind twisted her front gate, destroyed her chicken coop and damaged her fence, allowing her neighbor’s goats to get out.

Residents rushed to clean up as things got even stormier along the way.

“(I’m) shocked because I’ve never seen this before,” Newton said. “I mean, I went through Andrew, but being alone and stuff, that was the scary part.”

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