The Reaction: ‘I’d Rather Have an Earthquake’

What was Betty Simpson’s first thought Sunday afternoon when she heard crashing sounds?

“I thought the bread machine was blowing up,” she said.

Like many Huntington Harbour residents and others in Orange County, Simpson wasn’t aware that she was in the middle of a raging thunderstorm accompanied by a funnel cloud until it was nearly over. The funnel cloud moved with serendipity and surprise, visiting some houses but skipping others right next to them, and astonishing all in its path.

When Barbara Pazornik heard the noise and saw everything blowing, she turned to her son, Robert, and said, “We’ve got to get downstairs. It’s a tornado!”

“Mom, get a grip, there are no tornadoes in California,” replied Robert, a Marina High School senior.

But they and other residents became believers after they saw the sky darken, the wind blow hard and objects fly out of their yards.

Watching the funnel cloud “was like watching a low-grade ‘Twister,’ the movie,” said Greg Wang, standing on his roof to survey the damage. Three windows of his house were broken during the storm, which uprooted palm trees and sent Christmas decorations, outdoor furniture and garbage cans flying.

Eli Noor returned from work to his home on Seascape Drive about two hours after the twister to find a triangular section of his roof missing. The damaged area was directly above his children’s bedrooms.

“It’s horrible. Thank God my wife and kids weren’t home,” he said. The damage, he added, “is only money. It can be fixed.”

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In the funnel cloud’s wake, residents of Huntington Harbour emerged from their homes, surveyed their own damage and gathered with their neighbors as they searched for owners of relocated lawn furniture. They also swapped stories and compared their experience with scenes from “Twister” and “The Wizard if Oz.”

Kathy Byrne and her family returned to their undamaged home, next to Noor’s, from Palm Springs on Sunday afternoon. “We rarely have such excitement,” she said. “We’re supposed to have earthquakes, not this.”

That sentiment was echoed across the street by Betty Simpson, but she put a different spin on it.

“It’s funny how it touched one house and not another,” she said. “I’d rather have an earthquake, believe me.”

Betty Simpson said she saw a chunk of someone else’s roof and some of her Christmas decorations--an angel and Rudolph the reindeer--swirl around in a circle.

She cradled a small puppy while she stood next to snowman decoration that had been thrown onto her driveway. The puppy is a Christmas gift, yet to be named.

“Twister would be a good name,” her husband, Gary, offered, but Betty was leaning toward Mercedes.

While others were reclaiming their chaise lounges, Red Jones was re-mooring the “Short Circuit,” a 54-foot cabin cruiser docked in Huntington Harbour. The boat stayed moored to the dock during the storm, but the dock was smashed loose. About half a dozen boats were slightly damaged during the storm.

Jones had to get help to move his boat back to a secure area because he had removed its propeller earlier for maintenance.

“That boat and I have been through a lot,” Jones said, “but nothing like this.”

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Also contributing to this report was Times staff photographer Y. Craig Fujii.

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Nature’s Windup

A funnel cloud raised the roof off a Huntington Harbour home Sunday and tossed around boats.

Not only does nature abhor a vacuum, it also likes a moderate temperature. Funnel clouds form when unusally cold temperatures in the upper atmosphere interact with warm surface air. How a funnel forms:

1. Column of very cold air (-13 degrees at 30,000 ft.) slowly spins counterclockwise

2. Surface air (60 degrees) moves upward along cold air column

3. Warm updraft causes column to stretch and spin faster, forming funnel

Source: WeatherData Inc.; Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times