PINE ISLAND, Fla. — The National Weather Service in Tampa has confirmed that a weak and brief tornado touched down, damaging a large metal free-standing freezer around 11:10 a.m. near the intersection of Pine Island Road and Stringfellow Road.
Dan Mote owns Island Crab Company off of Doug Taylor Circle in St. James City on Pine Island. They’re a local business that distributes seafood to many of your favorite local restaurants — Pinchers and Deep Lagoon.
Mote just finished recovering after Hurricane Ian; now, another natural disaster has hit his company. He said his brand new 150-thousand-dollar metal freezer, where they store seafood, was destroyed by the tornado.
Mote said he was building this freezer to expand his business, and now it’s all gone, but he said he’s grateful no one was hurt and that it wasn’t full of seafood.
“Oh gosh, we could’ve lost 1 to 2 million dollars easily if it would’ve been full of seafood in the heat in the summer, and the rain would’ve thawed everything out pretty much immediately,” Mote said.
Mote said he’s shocked that this happened in Florida.
“You hear about it up north a lot but not so much down here. For this to happen and nothing else around it being damaged, it’s just very strange,” said Mote.
This, so far, is the only reported damage but could change after an official survey is done.
Despite all of this, Mote isn’t letting this dampen his spirit.
Mote said, “I guess it’s a part of the business. You just gotta keep your chin up, keep going, you know, and do what you have to do.”
Mote said that pretty soon he’s opening up another retail market in St. James City, ‘Island Crab Marina, Island Crab Retails and Food.’
This isn’t the only tornado that has hit Southwest Florida recently. The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down in Charlotte County on April 30, destroying a big metal storage barn.
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