It’s May 12th, 1997, and you’re staring out the window of your office in downtown Miami watching dark clouds roll in. You’re not concerned at first; it’s Miami and darkening skies come and go like the breeze.
But something about this cloud cover is different. You feel the hair on your neck start to tingle. Then something inexplicable happens…
…you feel a powerful urge to curl yourself into a ball under your desk.
Over the next 15 minutes Miami would experience the touchdown of a F1 tornado that would later be called the 1997 Miami tornado or the Great Miami tornado. On the ground for 8 miles, it flipped cars, blew out windows, damaged roofs, cut power to 21,000 people and caused 12 injuries (fortunately no one was killed and no injuries were serious.)
While fortunately weak, this tornado became one of the most famous in history due to the incredible photos and videos capturing the full likeness of the funnel as it moved through downtown, eventually crossing the MacArthur and Venetian Causeways and taking a swipe at the cruise ship MS Sovereign of the Seas.