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Severe weather hits Central Florida, storm damage reported

Trees down, lightning strikes building in Orange County

ORLANDO, Fla. – More storms passed through Central Florida as severe thunderstorm alerts were issued and storm damage was reported Tuesday.

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The National Weather Service issued severe thunderstorm warnings for Volusia, Sumter, Marion, Lake and Polk counties Tuesday night.

In Orange County, trees were reported to have crashed on a house or on wires and lightning was reported to have struck an apartment building at the River Reach Apartments.

Orange County Fire Rescue said the lightning strike caused a fire in the attic. The 24 units in the apartment building were evacuated and half of them remained evacuated overnight.

"I could see the flash from the lightning and then bam! You hear the thunder but it was really loud thunder, like louder than usual where the building shakes," said Lisandra Caneda, who lost everything in the fire.

Caneda has a 10-month-old son and 8-year-old daughter, but she was alone in the apartment when it caught fire. They are all now without their home and everything inside it.

"We have no clothes, everything is gone. This morning when I woke up, this was the last thing I thought was going to happen," said Caneda.

The Red Cross is helping 71 people who have been displaced by the fire.

In College Park, the storm took out a large water oak that's been in the front yard of a home for more than 30 years.

"It's unfortunate, you know. We've lived here since 1981 and the trees provided us a lot of shade and comfort. It sort of made our property but now it's lost," said Randy Shelby, who owns the home where the tree fell.

Shelby said he's sad to see the tree go, but is very thankful it didn't fall towards the house or injure anyone when it came down.

"There's always a lot of people walking here and people park on the street here and so it could've been worst," said Shelby. The tree is blocking an entire intersection at Sheridan Boulevard and Eastin Street. The City of Orlando said a crew will be out to remove it at 6 a.m. Wednesday.

Meanwhile, in Volusia County small power outages were reported throughout the county due to downed power lines. High temperatures in Orlando on Tuesday reached a few degrees above the average at 93. Rain chances jumped to 60 percent Wednesday afternoon, with highs in the low 90s all week. Rain chances will be at 50 percent on Thursday and Friday.

Father's Day weekend will not be a washout, but there will be a 40 percent coverage of rain both Saturday and Sunday, with highs in the low 90s.


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