Amid SoCal storm, possible tornado tears off roofs at mobile home park - Los Angeles Times
The Ocean-Aire Mobile Home Estates in Oxnard was hit by fearsome 60-mph wind gusts shortly after 3:30 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. Around a dozen properties were damaged as well as carports, awnings and power lines.
The park is at 2250 Butler Road, near Oxnard Boulevard and Pleasant Valley Road, and provides a valuable source of affordable housing for families and seniors.
No injuries were reported at the park, but the area remained without electricity around 6 p.m., according to reporting from the Ventura County Star.
Meteorologist Carol Smith said the weather service intended to assess the damage Friday and determine whether there was indeed a weak tornado at the park.
She said this was probably what happened based on the weather patterns seen on radar and the fact that roofs were ripped off buildings, which typically doesn’t happen from strong winds alone.
“Sometimes when you have really strong [wind] uplift and there’s strong thunderstorms or a collection of storms, you can get this [wind] rotation,” she said, describing how the tornado may have formed.
The weather service had warned about the possibility of tornadoes when issuing a severe thunderstorm warning for L.A. County on Thursday afternoon.
Mobile home parks have been hard hit during the extreme weather events Southern California has experienced this year.
More than 300 mobile homes were destroyed in the Palisades fire in January, which wiped out a rare pocket of affordable housing by the beach in Pacific Palisades.
Many former residents of the Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates and Tahitian Terrace mobile home park are now struggling to find housing within their budgets.
Clara Harter is a breaking news reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she covered politics and education for the L.A. Daily News. While at the Daily News, she published a series on fentanyl addiction that won a first-place investigative journalism award from the L.A. Press Club. Harter majored in political science and Middle Eastern studies at Columbia University. She loves surfing and, when not reporting, can most likely be found in the ocean.